Indifference Impossibility
by Ryntaia
Summary: The feelings of a Velvet Room Attendant could be a confusing thing indeed-for how is a doll to comprehend the emotions of a human being? Sometimes, it is pain that can bring understanding. Akechi survival fic, Lavenza centric.
1. Chapter 1

Indifference Impossibility

" _So, you know that we're out there, swatting lies in the making. You cannot move fast without breaking…you can't hold on or life won't change."_

In the silence of the prison, now devoid of the children led on by Yaldabaoth, the sound of her book closing echoed off the walls. Slim fingers ran over the cover as she stood aside her recovering Master. The damage that the God, the Beast, had done to Igor had been substantial. Lavenza could still see his eyes droops every once in a while, his thin limbs seeming even more fragile than usual. It almost send a pang of guilt through her. She had been hurt by the attack on the Velvet Room and torn apart but at the same time, she could not give way to ignorance of what 'she' had done.

What 'they' had done.

Justine and Caroline had assisted Yaldabaoth in tricking the children, keeping the truth of the Velvet Room locked up, and piloting the world to what the beast would have them believe to be the final end. It had only been by the virtue of the Hero that the Beast had not used what was left of the golden haired girl to sail humanity to his biased conclusion. With Igor safely out of sight, the now fallen God had expertly weaved her and her abilities into his plan so that he could manipulate fate. The manipulator, using her to manipulate them.

Still, guilt was not something that Lavenza was used to feeling. Igor had once told her that the Velvet Room had a responsibility to those blessed enough to cut through the veil and grasp the skill of the Wild Card. Perhaps, she mused, this was why she so constantly found herself thinking about what had happened. Perhaps this was why she felt this unfamiliar tug at her heart when Yaldabaoth manifested himself in her memories. He had hijacked their dedication to these special people and used it for his own destructive purposes.

They could've been saved. All of these children, these Persona users, they all could've been saved. None of them had to suffer like this…her grip on her book tightened as her brow furrowed. From day one, the Beast had been controlling their destiny and driving them down the path of their own destruction. She had helped him do so. She had taken a baton in each of her new hands to slam violently towards the kings in Yaldabaoth's chess game, instructing these misled user down a path that she internally was screaming to avoid.

Lavenza's eyes squeezed shut. She wasn't used to feeling these rushes of emotion. She wasn't made like Morgana, existing from the pure emotion of hope. Lavenza existed like her brothers and sisters did, brought into existence by Igor to serve a purpose of assistance. Just like those before her, she was created as a doll with a personality and great power. But a doll with an external personality did not necessarily entail the kind of emotions she now felt…emotions so strong and conflicting that she had always been so sure were exclusive to human beings.

"Lavenza."

She jerked to attention, turning to her thoughtful master. Igor was still pale and ill from the encounters with Yaldabaoth yet somewhere retained his sharp posture and mysterious aura. Quickly she curtsied to the elderly man, who simply chuckled in response and waved off her actions with one gloved hand. Confused, the young attendant held her book close to her heart—lately, it had been oddly comforting.

"Do you remember your sisters and your brother?" He asked. Her eyes widened slightly; what an odd question. But she knew the master always had a direction he was going so she nodded compliantly. "Ah yes…Elizabeth, Margaret, Theodore…previous attendants who did me so well in times of need. Lavenza, could you solve the riddle that I have for you?"

"I can only try to the extent of my power, Master." Lavenza replied immediately. Igor chuckled, almost knowingly, and placed his gloved hands underneath his elongated nose and closed his eyes.

"Why do I have so many attendants, Lavenza?"

"Because we are needed to assist you, Master."

"That is not quite the right answer, Lavenza. After all, just one of you can handle all the tasks of the Velvet Room. Why would I need four of you when I would only need one?" Lavenza paused; her master raised a good point. It was not as if a single attendant did not have the power to cover the position. "Four of you I have made, yet only one of you is here. Why do you think that is?"

"I…I can only assume you have tasked them to elsewhere, Master." Lavenza replied, voice breaking for the first time. The direction of this conversation was unfamiliar, almost intimidating. Igor had never spoken to her like this before. "There are, doubtlessly, dilemmas of our concern to be addressed elsewhere than in this room alone."

Igor chuckled; the sound was almost affectionate. "Dear, dear Lavenza. Every time I make a new one of you, they start off with this same kind of confusion. Dolls with personalities and powers drawn from the sea of the human consciousness, born at the age they are and unable to be anything else…or so I thought, when I originally made the first. Yet dear little Elizabeth is no longer with us."

"Elizabeth is deceased?"

"Elizabeth is elsewhere. She found something out about herself." Igor closed his eyes, as if remembering memories of decades past. "Lavenza, with my first doll, I learned something interesting. You are a personality as I craft you, but once you are born you will inevitably run into the real world. You will run into those who you guide, and you will inevitably begin to experience emotion that you previously could've never known. Fear, anger, love, even…guilt."

"…Master." Lavenza looked away shamefully.

"Why do you look away from me, child? I've come to realize that all of my creations will eventually begin to experience such things." Igor sighed. "In a way you are all like my children, really. And I am the weary parent who must watch you all experience new things and try to make your new sense of it. Even when to make sense of these experiences and emotions, you must run through a complex maze."

"I don't know how to stop feeling it, Master." Lavenza said quietly. It was no use hiding it anymore. "I get this sensation of my heart squeezing in on itself, only to remember I do not truly have a heart. I feel this nausea in my stomach, yet it cannot be since I do not truly have a stomach. I can feel the blood pounding in my veins as I watch the Hero rise to the challenge, and yet that cannot be for I do not have veins. I am a doll, Master, and I exist to serve a purpose to others. Yet I have these dark emotions that I cannot comprehend the source of."

Igor was silent for a moment, hand descending to tap carefully against the table in a rhythmic pattern. In the back of her mind Lavenza considered the man's words. Elizabeth had 'learned' something about herself and she had left. Goosebumps crawled over her skin; would this be the final guillotine? Would she be cast out of the Velvet Room for these usual thoughts? She had not seen her sisters and brother for a long time. Perhaps they…

"Please do not be ridiculous, Lavenza. You will always be welcome in the Velvet Room. You are a resident here. As are all your siblings." Igor said absentmindedly. "But you are so confused right now. We don't have any guests at the moment, so perhaps I could give you an assignment to take your mind off this…"

"An assignment?" Relief flooded into the blonde girl.

"Yes. To fix the mistakes of the Velvet Room." Igor shook his head. "Our run in with this Yaldabaoth character was significantly damaging to our purpose. The fact that we allowed not one, but two guests to be manipulated by imitations of ourselves is simply not acceptable. It is our purpose to help these humans work against such forces, not to help external forces manipulate them. They are simply too valuable to be given away with such ease."

"What shall we do then, Master?"

Igor raised his hands, clapping twice. The feel of a _presence_ hit Lavenza like a ton of bricks. Her hair flung back and forth as she looked around with wide, confused yellow eyes. It was an unusual power—extraordinarily powerful, yet dull and unmotivated. Like a dead man walking. Turning on her heels to face the door once behind her, the answer to Lavenza's questions were answered with shimmering blue prison bars.

He hadn't been there before, that was for certain. Light brown hair lay against brick wall, looking erratic and unwashed—untrimmed bangs blocked out dark and empty eyes. The teenager's body was limp in the ripped up uniform. With the levels of dirt and blood that had accumulated on the surface, it was almost impossible to tell that the uniform had once been a crisp white. The gold baubles across the breast seemed to be almost rusted over to a red color. In the far back of the cell, Lavenza could see a dark red mask with a long beak. It had been broken in half.

"Master, this is…"

"Goro Akechi."

"But Master, he…" Lavenza paused to try and tie her thoughts together. Sometimes it was hard to piece together all the memories from when she had been two. "…he was killed. In Masayoshi Shido's Palace by….himself. More precisely, by Shido's cognition of him."

"Lavenza, when one dies, where do they go?"

She was thrown off by the question. "When they die? Their spirit dies out and becomes part of the world around them. Becomes part of the soil, grows the grass, fertilizes the hope for a new life."

"And how does a spirit do this when they are not in that world?"

Lavenza paused.

"When one physically dies in that world, they either come here or they drop out into the reality beyond the Velvet Room." Igor said. Lavenza felt that squeezing sensation at that not-quite-there heart again. "It is rare for people to die in that world, at least physically. It is a land of Shadows and Cognitions. The sea of the human consciousness is not equipped to deal with actual physical death so it sends the living to back where they can die…or to us."

"Why to us?" Lavenza voice was quiet, as if she was almost afraid of her question. Igor extended a hand out to the brunette in the cage; Akechi flinched violently in response. "M-Master?"

"They will come to us…" Igor said slowly. "…when the Velvet Room has made a serious miscalculation. They will come to us when they still have a service from us that that they need, or a service that we need from them. And I believe that in this case it may very well be both. I've always wondered if we could make use of a contract with someone who resides both outside of and within the Velvet Room…"

Lavenza stood uncertainly in front of the cage, its prisoner now hissing in pain and beginning to writhe like a wounded animal. Reaching out to touch her hands against the bars, she was surprised to see them dissolve in front of her eyes. Igor watched the girl carefully from behind as she approached the bleeding and confused boy. He snapped his eyes up to stare at her—a dark red gaze from a face that she now realized was covered in blood. Still she did not flinch; she was an attendant of the Velvet Room. She had no time for indecision. Only to guide, only to learn.

She offered her hand. He stared at it like he didn't comprehend it.

"Goro Akechi." She stated, her voice clear and confident. Somehow she couldn't help but feel that this was the right path; her words flowed out of her like smooth butter. "I am Lavenza of the Velvet Room. I seek your hand of assistance. You, the child misled, can still go down the path of rehabilitation if you contract yourself with us. Become one with us, and prevent this from happening again."

"Contract…?" His voice was hoarse, out of use.

"Yes. Swear your temporary allegiance to us and help us against those who would misuse the Velvet Room." Igor interrupted. Lavenza still had her hand withheld. "In exchange, we can grant you the right to continue living and rectify that which you have been misled to do."

"Living…has done nothing for me…" Akechi spat, blood splattering out with a cough. "Why would I want to…"

"For them."

Lavenza was surprised for a moment to hear the words coming out of her mouth. _For them_. She had not even intended it, but once she had said it, she realized it was exactly what she had wanted. To protect _them_. Those people who had fought so hard to keep life from dying out, those people who had surprised the world so much, those people that had saved her and unlatched the bonds on the boy before them. She could feel that squeezing sensation at her heart—her guilt. She could feel that nausea in her stomach—her uncertainty. She could even feel that sensation of blood pounding through her veins and in her ears—her _exhilaration_ for the rectification of both her mistakes and the mistakes of the boy in front of her.

The boy whose bloody, dirty hand clasped into hers.

"The contract is sealed. Lavenza shall be your guide."

Blue flame ran down from her fingers across his. Whorls of thick blue curved over the white fabric, previously red cuffs bleeding into a dark black color to match the new color. Previously white pants darkened into formal black slacks. The red mask behind Akechi burst into flames and faded away just as quickly; across his face burned the shape of a blue butterfly, settling across his cheekbones and curving over his light brown hair and dark red eyes. The base of the abdomen curved elegantly over his nose, sharp metal antennae curving down against the wing in a U pattern.

He stood, far taller than the young girl, gazing down at her with some modicum of distaste. Lavenza realized that, to some amount, she shared that distaste. That she was sharing a feeling that she had thought exclusive to human beings, that was not the domain or business of a doll. She closed her eyes—maybe, in some way, Yaldabaoth hadn't entirely wronged her.

If he had, then she wouldn't be able to share the exhilaration and hope that reflected under the ex-detective's expression of distaste.

She closed her eyes with a smile.

"This place is tightly bound to your fate. Nothing here happens without a reason, no feeling is felt meaninglessly….welcome to the Velvet Room. I…am Lavenza."


	2. Chapter 2

Note: A few expressed interest in this continuing and since its something of a decent launching pad for an Akechi afterstory I've been thinking about for a while, I figured I'd work further into it. I dunno if it works or not, but here you go I guess!

 _"Better think about your game, are you sure the next move's the right move for you? Are you sure you won't get outmaneuvered again, and again my friend?"_

Lavenza tapped fingers against the inside pages of her book impatiently, out of the range of the brunette's sight. She and Goro Akechi stood on opposite sides of the seemingly endless blue void—created by Igor for the small blonde's use exclusively—and despite the weight of their contract heavy on his back, the boy's red eyes seemed to treat the Attendant as a enemy. He had all but drawn his weapon at this point, and his fingers still were positioned carefully over the hilt at his side. She would've thought the fact that she had GIVEN him the sword would be enough reason to instill trust in him but apparently not.

For them, she remembered absentmindedly. She supposed 'for them' didn't necessarily mean that he trusted any of the people within the Velvet Room. Just that the pair currently held the same goal. Even then she wasn't sure if that goal was for the same reason as her own. While major power rested in her small frame, Lavenza still wasn't anywhere near being capable of reading minds and understanding intents. She could only imagine them from actions. And Goro Akechi's current actions were somewhat akin to a wounded animal that had been cleaned up. He wasn't covered in blood and dirt anymore but he was still willing to bite at the hand that was trying to feed him.

He had been struck too much in his 'contracts' with people. He wasn't yet willing to take this one with a genuine trust yet.

"The Master has provided me with this space today in order to bring you up to par in battle." Lavenza ignored the insulted look on the ex-detective's face. "You think you can fight in battle but to my records, you were more of an assassin. A valuable skill but the Velvet Room never knows what may come against it. We are the constant middle ground of catastrophic disasters."

"Do you typically allow it to go so wrong?" Akechi asked; his tone was deceptively innocent. Lavenza shook her head.

"You are full of resentment, I'm afraid." She commented; his nose twitched in annoyance at the observation. "You think you know what it means to fight but you can't even fathom the full scope of your own abilities yet."

"I understand just fine." He spat.

"Do you now?" Lavenza quirked an eyebrow; she wondered if his brashness should've been an annoyance to her. If anything, though, she couldn't help but be amused by Goro Akechi's stubbornness. Immediately after being pulled out of the wall he had built around himself and he was already trying to hastily reestablish it. Except this time the wall was crumbling quicker than it could be erected and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Despite standing in the ruins of his own defenses he still nodded arrogantly in reply to her question. If he must be that way, she supposed.

Lavenza hummed quietly to herself as she flipped through the pages of the compendium in her hands. She wasn't about to tell the already frustrated teen that she was looking through the achievements of the previous Wild Card. Goro Akechi may risk blowing a gasket if she did, and as amusing as that sounded, it wasn't her goal today. Her goal was to crack open the hard shell that kept in his true abilities.

"I think this one will be suiting to begin with. It fits the Arcana you seem to have bound yourself to." She mused to herself. Deep inside she felt a pang of that unfamiliar feeling again—worry, followed by guilt. She had to close her eyes for a moment to sort it all out. Wild Cards typically broke away from the Arcana they held and latched onto The Fool once they discovered their unique abilities. Goro Akechi had not. As it was, she wasn't sure if she could bring out his TRUE abilities anymore or if he was going to have to be exclusively latched onto the Justice Arcana.

A faint, familiar pulse in her chest…the cat.

 _Hope. Sometimes all you can do is hope._

She slammed the book closed; the sound reverberated off all of the walls. Akechi looked around with caution in his eyes—they were distant walls that could not even be seen by the naked eye. Yet in this nonsensical space they sounded as if they were right behind him. Lavenza could easily blame the oddity on that the room had been made hastily but she had a nagging feeling that Igor had done it as a joke.

The back of her mind registered that she had never thought such a thing of her Master before as her hands robotically called a persona forth in front of her. White wings interspersed with flecks of gold spread out wide above them above, blonde hair tumbling over a dark band across the spirit's eyes with only a single and simply drawn eye scrawled across it. A chain ran across her neck and between her legs, scrapping gently against the ground as her sparsely covered form hovered above them both. The Angel—her presence was not strong, but she would serve to begin Lavenza's surveys.

"Attack him." She commanded the winged creature. The Angel rose high, sparks of light emerging from behind her to shower down onto Akechi. He unsuccessfully attempted to dodge with several of the razor sharp lights tearing at the fabric of his uniform. His lips curled into a sneer—an ugly sneer, prompting forward a feeling that Lavenza had hoped NEVER to feel again. Fear…isolation. The animalistic sneer somehow made the girl feel so alone in the seemingly endless room.

He shouted something and the pure white Persona rose, arrow of light resting on a sturdy bow. The radiating light on the arrow quickly swirled into a dark cursing aura that slammed right into the shoulder of the flying angel. She let out a harsh shriek, hands clutching at her face as she fell to the ground to squirm. Lavenza's heart almost stopped for a beat as the Angel writhed on the ground as the cursed energy coursed through her body. It almost distracted her from Robin Hood raising a new arrow to the bow.

"Stop!" The Attendant yelled, skidding to a stop between the Angel and her new charge. Robin Hood seemed to inadvertently jerk to a stop; she could see that Akechi was not happy with the interruption but Lavenza at least took some reassurance from that he was not going to let that quiver release and rain down on her. She was not particularly weak but she was also not interested in that sudden burst of pain.

"What? I'm doing what you told me to do. You wanted me to train." Akechi said. His voice was deadpanned. "That's why you brought that woman here, yes?"

"Yes…to train, but not kill. Can you hear her voice, Goro?" Lavenza asked seriously, one hand held out between herself and the brunette teenager. She felt almost akin to a lion tamer; if it wasn't so dangerous, she would have laughed. "What does she have to say, Goro?"

He seemed to grit his teeth but looked past the small girl to the fallen Angel. She had lifted her golden hair from the ground but was still struggling to get up. It didn't surprise him that she could speak—it wasn't like he hadn't seen it before. Akechi wasn't sure what the little girl was trying to get at here.

"Urggh, you're a lot stronger than I thought you'd be…why did the Miss call on me for a job like this? It's such a bummer, I swear…" The spirit was mumbling irately to herself. Akechi gestured Robin Hood back behind him; the silent Persona obediently kneeled to the ground with one fist against the dark blue floor. Away from the safety of the bow with only his sword to protect him, Akechi approached the blonde creature as Lavenza stepped away from her. Cautiously he drew the spirit's attention by placing his sword under her chin. The banded over face immediately looked up to him attentively, almost as if expecting something out of Akechi.

"Say something." He said lamely. There wasn't really much else he could come up with. He couldn't even honestly figure out what the attendant was having him do, much less why she the blue clad child was watching his interactions so intently. "What do you have to say?"

"It's been a bad day!" The Angel snapped suddenly. "I hate being summoned for this kind of stuff. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a tool for the Miss and the Master and their stupid little schemes! But…but I don't want to be lost to the consciousness again!"

"What…do you want, exactly?" Akechi asked hesitantly; his stomach felt mildly nauseous.

"I want to help but I don't want helping to be such a drag." The Angel groaned. Her chin drooped dramatically. "You know what I mean? You ever feel like you're helping but not really helping? Doesn't it just drive you up a freakin' WALL?"

Akechi bit his lip. "I have an idea of what it feels like."

"Tch, you young kids, though. Everything drives you up a wall." The golden haired spirit's tone suddenly changed, sounded harsh and accusatory. "What WOULD make you happy, anyways? The youth of today are always complaining about how hard you have it. They don't even think about death! I mean, what would you want to even do before you die?"

Akechi stared blankly at the sitting spirit for a moment before he realized that he had been presented a question. Her switch of tone and unsolicited complaining had been so out of nowhere that it had taken a moment to even register and process what he had been asked. The blade in his hands drooped to his side as he rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. This test battle he had been presented with had rather suddenly switched gears but by the look in Lavenza's eyes, it had been the intention all along.

"Before I die…before I die, I always wanted revenge on the people who wronged me. Right now, I don't really know. There's no revenge you can get against the dead, not really. They won't ever care." Lavenza listened intently to the brunette's words. She didn't know what it was but something was prompting him to speak from the heart. Perhaps it had been the keen, enthusiastic honesty of the Angel in front of him. "Now…before I die, I just want to do something that matters."

It went unsaid, but somehow it rang through Lavenza's mind.

 _I just want to do something that matters for the people who matter to me._

From the slight, somber smile on the Angel's lips, Lavenza had a feeling that she too detected the unsaid statement. "Do I matter to you? Could I matter to you? In the future, could you see me mattering to you?"

"I don't know." He said. It was brutally honest, but there was a touch of helplessness in it. "Not anymore."

 _Who are you talking about, I wonder_. Lavenza mused but put the thought away for another day. She recognized the look on the Angel's face, the spread of the wings away from the body as she drew closer to the brunette teenager in front of her. It was almost amusing how Akechi recoiled; as if he was expecting the spirit that he had conversed with to attack him. Though Lavenza knew that it was entirely possible to happen in such negotiations, it was clear that this was not one of those cases.

"I like your honesty, boy. I can tell you don't use it too much, though. It seems you might need someone truly honest…" the Angel chuckled. "… _like me. I am thou. Thou art I. From the sea of thy soul I do come…_ "

Lavenza stood back and covered her eyes to shield from the blinding light as the Angelic woman rose up to swirl around, coming to a final stop as a butterfly mask identical to the one given to Akechi by the Velvet Room contract. The brunette stumbled back a bit, showing fear for the first time since he had stepped in front of the Attendant and contracted with her. His red eyes seemed to widen in confusion under the thick mask as it glowed brightly and took in the new persona.

And as soon as it had begun, the Angel before them was gone and the light had died away like a flame doused by water. Akechi blinked in confusion, one blue gloved hand grasping suddenly at his chest as he fell to his knees. Behind him, Robin Hood dissipated into the dark void above them. Lavenza took careful steps towards the ex-detective as to stand by his shoulder. Careful fingers reached out to touch his shoulder but before they could, his own snapped up and wrapped the small hand up in a tight grip. She was silent but winced internally at the pain.

"…Do you feel her?"

"…Yes."

"Do you understand now?"

His grip tightened.

"Would you like to understand?"

A slight loosening.

Lavenza fell to her knees aside the brunette as he allowed her fingers to slip loose from his and rest on his shoulder. He eyed her with that familiar look of distaste and distrust and at that very moment, there was a new feeling that jabbed at the girl that she found unbelievably unpleasant. A boiling in the stomach she didn't have and a heat of irritation that clouded through her mind. With a snap she realized that at the back of her mind, she was almost offended—irrationally so. A long deep breath reigned in this new frustration she felt toward her ward.

"You can control more than one Persona at a time…you are a Wild Card, just like him." Lavenza didn't even need to see the defeat in Akechi's eyes to know that he understood whom she was talking about. "The birth of a Wild Card heralds a great disaster, one that they are destined to prevent no matter the costs. They boast the ability to control multiple Persona…like Robin Hood and Loki. But as a Wild Card you are inherently capable of taking on ANY Persona."  
"The Wild Card heralds disaster…"

"The Wild Card heralds _redemption_. They herald the prevention of disaster." Lavenza corrected. "He heralded the prevention of Yaldabaoth's destruction of humanity. Perhaps you are to herald a different redemption, Goro Akechi. Even though you were tangled up in Yaldabaoth's web and led away from the purpose a Wild Card is to serve...it is the Velvet Room's responsible to rectify this and set the Wild Card on the right path."

"Yaldabaoth…" He repeated dimly. Lavenza sighed; she had explained aspects of what had happened with the Phantom Thieves and the Holy Grail that become the Demiurge but it was likely hard to digest. Something as difficult as Palaces and the Metaverse was already typically beyond human comprehension, but a genuine God rising and falling in the name of humanity…sometimes it was hard for even her to grasp. It seemed so distant and impossible yet still stung so hard.

She shook her head.

"It seems, Goro Akechi, that you CAN actually utilize your abilities. But that can stay for now….it seems to me that you need rest."


	3. Chapter 3

" _We're all trapped in a maze of relationships…life goes on with or without you. I swim in a sea of the unconscious, I search for your heart, pursuing my true self."_

A soft clink came as a teacup met its saucer. Within the dark brown liquid reverberated gently, swirling across the thin line of the teabag that hung down aside the flower patterns painted delicately on the china surface. Lavenza hummed in approval as the wind softly weaved its way through her white blonde locks. It was a good tea, she decided, this Earl Grey. The mini macaroons sat aside them, dipped into the steaming tea, were even more of what she believed was known as 'tasty' and 'good'.

"Would you like to explain what we're doing in a Parisian café?"

Lavenza sighed. Annoyance, that was one of those emotions she was accumulating to. She wasn't sure if it was normal for her as an Attendant to be so annoyed with a Wild Card but Goro Akechi certainly triggered it. Whatever patience he had possessed while pretending to be a detective idol of the Japanese country, he had lost it when struck down in the other world. Either that or he didn't consider her worthy of the effort that it took to pretend to be pleasant. She wasn't sure which option knotted her stomach more.

Still, she summoned a tight-lipped smile and gestured across the glass table at Akechi's still untouched cup across from her. Her didn't bother to even glance at it. "We're here in a Parisian café having what is commonly known as tea. And macaroons, of course. Have you ever had macaroons before? I must admit that this is my first time but I'm taking quite a liking to them."

"You said…" He paused. The ex-detective was desperately trying to find his words within his obvious frustration. Lavenza took a sip of her tea patiently, looping her right foot behind her left leg to tap the tip of her shoe against the iron wrought stand of the table between them. "…you said we had something to do today. If you'll excuse my… _impertinence,_ I don't see what _drinking tea_ in Paris has to do with learning anything about my skills or helping out the Velvet Room."

"You'll see." Was all the girl had to say in response. She could see the fury momentarily wash across the brunette's face, immediately repressed in the face of the public striding around him. From behind Lavenza, Akechi could see a woman and her daughter watching them cautiously—the waiter had seemed nervous at their presence as well. More at his than hers.

He grimaced. Lavenza only gestured at the tea in front of him.

Begrudgingly he reached out and took the cup to take a quick sip. It was nothing special in his opinion. Tea was too soft of drink. It could give you a kick or it could put you to sleep, but it never did it with much alarm and hurry. He had always much preferred coffee. It could give him the energy boost he needed while working late night on homework or cases…or the energy boost he needed to make his way through the twisted confines of an already disturbed mind in an attempt to make it even more disturbed.

The idea of coffee suddenly seemed a little less pleasing.

He took another longer, hurried sip at the tea in front of him.

What was this little girl playing at, anyways?

"What do you think?"

"Of what?" Akechi muttered, leaning back with the cup and saucer in hand. This whole excursion was frustrating. It wasn't like playing friendly with the shadows hadn't been an annoyance but at least he was in battle. At least he had learned something. If anything he knew that Lavenza had things to teach him, secrets that he could learn…ways to do something about what he had done.

Nothing could truly be done, of course, but still…

"The tea. Though if you want to talk about something more personal, I'm open to what you have to say." Akechi quirked an eyebrow at her comment. Apparently the child fancied herself some sort of armchair psychologist. Then again, he knew he had to be careful with her—she was something that wasn't quite shadow but not quite human either. Something powerful. He didn't even know if she realized it but Lavenza radiated authority, strength, and knowledge. The only thing she didn't seem to radiate was direction.

But he could play her game if she truly wanted to engage. "I'm not fond of tea. I prefer coffee. Things like this should be practical and tea seems like it has no practical purpose that coffee can't do far better. So it tastes fine, I suppose, but I don't think much of it as a whole."

"Then why didn't you order a coffee?" Lavenza asked innocently, batting her eyelashes playfully. Akechi grit his teeth. As if she didn't know.

"Because you took me to a café in Paris where everyone _speaks French_." He snapped out irritably. "No one here speaks my language and I don't speak theirs."

"Everyone speaks the same language."

Akechi paused for a moment. "That…that is sheer nonsense. There is no single language that everyone in the world speaks. I speak Japanese; they speak French. I don't know what YOU speak. Your lingual skills seem to be quite advanced for someone your age."

"Why thank you." Lavenza chuckled. "But you're still wrong."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"It's true."

"Just shut up and drink your tea already. I can't stand you."

Lavenza made a humming noise against her drink thoughtfully as the waiter passed by them to wait on the woman behind Akechi. Her bright yellow eyes focused on the well dressed man, looking right past her table companion and at the tray of half eaten Sandies that he took away from the table. Alongside them was a set of very beautiful, very valuable, very fragile looking china teacups positioned around a matching teapot.

As he returned their way, her leg darted out from under her blue dress to strike against the knees of the waiter. The man toppled over in surprise, caught off guard, as a small gasp escaped his throat. Akechi rose from the table with a start to grab at the man's arm; he heaved the taller man to his feet only to be fixated with a furious expression. Dark red eyes darted between the waiter and the crushed china at his side as two and two came together. Lavenza, on the other hand, returned to sipping her tea delicately.

" _Quel genre de blague pensez-vous que ç'est?!_ " The man yelled with his arm thrown out in the direction of the shattered teacups and ruined cookies. Akechi shook his head furiously. " _Alors porque?!_ _Pourquoi voudriez-vous laisser ça arrive?!_ "

"We're very sorry, it was just an accident—"

" _Accident? Elle l'a fait exprès!_ " The waiter fixed Lavenza with a dirty look. She simply chewed on one of her remaining macaroons and stared skywards. Akechi furrowed his nose. " _Contrôlez votre fille, monsieur! Ou bien vous ne serez pas les bienvenus ici!_ "

"Yes, of course. I understand. It won't happen again. I'll make SURE of it." Akechi shot a glare at Lavenza. "Right, LAVENZA?"

"Tch!" The waiter shook his head, straightening his suit and pushing past the brunette to go back inside. Before he went, though, he turned back to them and gave them a long and warning look. " _Je ne peux pas le croire ... les absurdités que j'ai endurées, je le jure…"_

"…I can't fucking believe you!" Akechi hissed, slamming down in his seat and banging his fist against the glass table. Lavenza raised a brow at the slight crack that appeared—almost unnoticeable to the normal eye but it would grow with the daily provocation it surely received. "Why would you do something like that?! Aren't you supposed to be all sophistication and all that?! What kind of sophisticated person trips a waiter?! The bastard was furious!"

"You knew he was mad?" Lavenza cocked her head to the side, almost birdlike in motion.

"Wha—who WOULDN'T?" Akechi growled, taking a quick look at the mother and daughter behind them packing up their belongings in a hurry. "We damn well agitated the entire café!"

"And you knew why he was mad?"

"Are you trying to play stupid or something?"

"Did you?"

" _Yes._ Because of what _you did._ "

"Well then you were wrong." Lavenza giggled in sastifaction. Akechi looked taken aback for a moment. Then his head slid down to rest against the table, frustration and exhaustion manifesting on his tired features. "People are all connected in a way so in a way everyone speaks SOME sort of similar language. If you try hard enough you can communicate with someone who doesn't speak exactly like you. It's simple that you have to have the right motivation to try and communicate with someone."

"Many thanks for the life lesson. Can we please leave now? We're starting to get looks and quite frankly I'm supposed to be dead so I'm not sure I want that kind of attention." Akechi muttered irately. "I still don't understand why you wanted to go do this. Go out to a café? Were you just hungry for tea and my humiliation or something?"

"No. I just wanted to talk to you." Lavenza hesitated for a moment. "…and maybe learn a little bit about you."

"…Excuse me? What possible use could you have for that? Aren't I just a servant of your Master's cause, whatever that might be?" Akechi asked, raising his head slightly. His tone was bitter but laced within it was slight traces of curiosity, a child within calling for answers, and dare Lavenza say it…she almost detected some trace of HOPE in Goro Akechi's voice. It was so faint, like a dying ember on the last log of a fire, perhaps undetectable to most. Lavenza herself would've missed it a few years ago, back before the Hero had arisen and created these emotions within her. Before the cat had been born from a refuge of the human consciousness and all the hope that it had left…

…once buried in the pessimism of the Holy Grail and Yaldabaoth's hand, Lavenza found that hope—seemingly so hard for people to identify in each other—was readily apparent in every human being that walked past her. At first it hadn't seemed to be there in Goro Akechi. His eyes had seemed dull, his stance distance and empty of empathy and trust. But here it was, right there in front of her, asking her why she had bothered to drag him out to a Parisian café when all he was supposedly meant to do was to be a soldier of the Velvet Room.

And right here, in front of her, she saw that faint but unmistakable flicker of what could only be known as human hope.

Her body relaxed.

Her eyes lidded.

Her fingers, tight on her cup, loosened.

And the smile on her face, forced all throughout their stupid excursion to Paris, managed to poke through and become genuine.

"Because I don't want you to serve me and neither does Master Igor. We want to know you. Do you want to know us?" Lavenza answered his hope smoothly, yellow eyes locked into dark red ones. There was an immediate trigger of distrust in them but Goro Akechi was weak. He had grown tired and isolated in his time after Shido had shown his true intention, so distant since he had opened his hand and welcomed death as it stared him in the face with his own eyes. His façade was not nearly as powerful as it used to be—the detective who stunned the public was now in front of Lavenza as he truly was.

A lost child.

"…I suppose it wouldn't be bad to know you. After all, it could only be…beneficiary to know more about my abilities and the both of you seem to know a lot about this power and about that world." Akechi cleared his throat, waving his hand dismissively. Lavenza felt an odd bubbling in her throat—a tickling, that giggling rising to her throat. "So…yes, I suppose we could be _associates_. I would warn you not to mistake this as some sort of friendly alliance, though."

"All business, I assure you." Lavenza brought her tea up to her face to hide her growing smile. For so much business, she could sense an odd yet not entirely unfamiliar bond of trust coming faintly from the teenager across from her. Based on his odd expression, Akechi was experiencing similar. "You look a tad bit thrown off. What is it that you see, my associate?"

"There's…a card…and chains, around you…" Akechi trailed off, clearly confused. Lavenza withheld her chuckle and instead cleared her throat. She had memorized the stanza by heart yet she had never said it face to face with a Wild Card. She had not been complete when she established her bond with the Hero…but now she was here, with a new Wild Card. Whether or not he too would serve the purpose of the Velvet Room remained to be seen.

Until then, though…

" _I am THOU, thou art I."_

 _"Thou hast acquired a NEW vow."_

 _"It shall BECOME the wings of rebellion that BREAKTH the chains of captivity."_

 _"With the birth of the STRENGTH Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to FREEDOM and new power…"_

She could swear she heard the sounds of the chains clattering in that moment, that she could feel their grasp tightening around her, that she could see the radiating blue light above her of this new arcana that she had become part of. It took her breath away, really, to partake in this one on one. What she had missed…she would not miss it again. Power was her, as was guidance.

She locked eyes with the brunette. She wasn't sure if he understood.

She had the feeling he did.

"You have found a new arcana, Goro Akechi. Use it well."


	4. Chapter 4

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to EnigmaKint05 for pointing out some unanswered questioned that this story had as well as bringing up Belladonna, Nameless, and Demon Painter. I would have never thought to include them in the narrative without your comment. Thanks!

Also, due to some formatting issues with the site, Belladonna's text will look a little odd. This is because it's written like in the game, with the notes as periods. The correctly formatted version is posted on my Ao3, which is linked on my page.

" _This song I can hear, it makes my heart shake. My heart is scraped away and while I am naked I feel the illusion…it passes through my heart."_

"She has talent."

Akechi received only silence from Lavenza in response. When he tried to speak again, one of her thin fingers rested on her pink lips. Yellow eyes reflected a warning glance to stay his silence. The teenager engaged her stare for a moment but knew better than to try and win against it. With a sigh he fell back against the plush blue couch with pursed lips. Immediately the small girl's finger fell from her mouth and atop her other, attention snapping back to the woman standing in the middle of the room alongside a pianist.

She had greeted him in song, this woman, and never once left the podium with her microphone. Her back seemed eternal stiff, held into a pristine posture, almost as if she was a statue. Her dark purple hair seemed to hold itself up against the weight of life yet was streaked with two stripes of gray. The woman was inattentive to her audience; rather, she stared ahead with determined eyes surrounded by deep and thick purple eyeliner. Occasionally her neck craned backwards at a particularly high note, arms moving outwards further as if welcoming in some physical force.

The man behind her hadn't even said anything to his visitors—simply given Akechi a wry smile. Not that his mannerisms had been what taken the ex-detective's interest the most. No, that honor certainly went to the thick blue cloth tied securely over his eyes as his fingers danced expertly over the keys of the piano in front of him. Every once in a while he would pause, as if he was listening to some sound that the rest of them couldn't hear, then resume with that same wry smile painted on his features.

It was certainly like nothing Goro Akechi had seen before. But it was also certainly something that he couldn't make sense of either.

"Lavenza—"

"Please. It is near completion."

He sighed as the statuesque woman's voice pitched higher and higher, her companion's fingers flawlessly following the direction of her operatic voice as their music swelled further and further. Akechi wasn't quite sure where it was coming from but he could swear he heard an orchestra of violins joining in on the sharp lyrics and careful notes. It seemed to go on, so much higher and higher, so much louder and stronger, and the teenager found himself clutching at the white dress shirt he had been provided.

And then, right in the middle of the largest swell, they both went quiet immediately. Fingers were still above the keys of the piano and operatic trills died down into the throat of the woman who stood still in front of them. Akechi hesitated a glance at the blonde next to him—she too, had not moved. Cautiously he leaned forward only for the girl's pupils to sway in her still form and focus in on him. She watched him, he watched the musicians, and the musicians stayed at an unfathomable standstill.

It was like the world had stopped.

And then, as if nothing had happened, fingers pressed back down on piano keys. Soon thereafter it was followed by the return of the woman's melodic opera. The sound bounced off the walls and echoed all around them, and Akechi realized with a start that the pair had started over the same exact song that they had been playing before. Not even that they had started it over but that their perfection of their arts was so pristine that it sounded exactly identical. As if he was hearing the same song being played over and over on a CD.

It grasped at him and he didn't quite understand why he felt like his stomach was twisting, why his heart was constricting, why his head felt dizzy.

"You mustn't let it confuse you. You have to just give into it."

Lavenza's hand felt like the only solid thing in the room when it hit his back, running across the back of his neck. Fingers clutched there as if to keep him grounded in their world, whatever that world was. She was humming slightly and Akechi realized he had allowed himself to, in his fervor, be pulled to his feat and walked over to the pair standing in front of them. Neither musician faltered for a moment in their song.

"Can you hear the fall and rise of the human soul?" The masked man finally spoke. His attention did not fall from the song for a minute. Akechi stared at him blankly, unable to compute what the musician was saying. "You are both with and without the flow of the human soul. I can see why you were brought here. You are as wild as you are tame, cold as you are compassionate. Even with all of your contradictions you fit into the aria. How beautiful."

" _We can't have a good Without a bad It is the nature of the aria of the soul That you join in and be the warrior "_ The woman sung out suddenly, her spoken words going along exactly with the flow of her previous opera. " _I praise visiting warriors Who challenge the monster called thyself O, are you of the unusual card borne of fate Fate is both for you and against you So you cannot falter "_

Akechi stared, convincing himself he wasn't shaking, as the surprisingly tall woman fell back into her usual opera. She sung as if she hadn't even said anything at all, the man playing his instrument like he had not chose to interact ever. As soon as they reached out of their aria, they sunk back in and resumed the flow of it. The aria of the soul.

"Belladonna is one of our most interesting residents, wouldn't you say?" Lavenza broke Akechi out of his reverie with only a mere tug on his shirt. "She and Nameless are always playing songs. They wish all of our visitors to hear our song. But the Velvet Room is so vast that sometimes they hide away from the eyes of those we choose. They hid away from Elizabeth's Hero. They hid away from Margaret's Hero. And they hid away from my Hero, too."

Akechi started, suddenly, twisting in his stomach turning into a boiling fire instead.

"Why do you call him that?" He snapped. Lavenza looked at him with curious eyes, as if she didn't understand the question. "HERO. Why do you call…HIM that? He was a thief, a manipulator, a man who worked under the nose of the authorities. _Akira Kurusu_ made himself judge, jury, and executioner. He isn't a HERO. He's nothing but a TRICKSTER."

"The Trickster can be the Hero. You will find that they are titles that can very easily overlap. Most of our Heroes went under the nose of the authorities, and many of them were in the position of being judge, jury, and executioner. What makes them more than just Tricksters is that they have the ability to make the right choices and not let that power go to their head." Lavenza replied without missing a beat. "I called him Trickster to his face. If you would prefer I call him Trickster to your face as well, then I can. But it will not make it go away that he is indeed the Hero as well."

Akechi's fist clenched.

"To you, he was the Hero as well. You simply won't admit it."

A clatter rang out as the microphone was torn from Belladonna's hands, smacked to the ground by young hands. It did not seem to distress the woman. Even without it she sung on, still as a rock and arms spread out. Nameless' fingers did not cease in following her muted rhythm but he tilted his head to frown at the brunette boy with dark red fury blazing in his eyes. He stood almost as still as the singer in front of him.

For a moment her mouth closed, her song lost, her eyes finally locking into something other than her music.

 _"It will do you very little good To turn from the truth and lie to our eyes The human soul is as clear as it is mudded And it will do much better without the mud O dear child "_ She sung, returning to the tone of the aria but keeping her eyes steadily locked onto his as she followed the rhythm. Nameless glanced back for a moment but then followed after her words flawlessly, the tune of the aria reverberating off the walls once more. Akechi's body stiffened defensively as her hands reached out to his face—covered with thick leather lacking any distinct smell, and cold as ice as she cupped his cheeks in her fingers.

" _O my child do not lie For what has it gotten you so far Shed the skin of the lie and breath the air of the truth Perhaps your pain will begin to subside "_

"SHUT UP! Shut UP, shut up, SHUT UP!" Akechi screeched, hands digging into hair abrasively and pulling at the roots. Carefully Lavenza stepped backwards to allow him space, but Belladonna did not move at all. Her bright and unnerving eyes just locked into his furious dark ones. "I didn't ask for this! I should've died back there anyways! But now I'm locked in here listening to some madwoman sing some cryptic bullshit about…about ME?! What kind of joke do you think this is?!"

Fury was bubbling around Akechi's edges; the blue and black dress suit was melting away to crisscrosses of dark black and grey. Lavenza narrowed her eyes as the blue mask on the boy's face cracked, a sliver of dark transparent red edging out from underneath it. Quickly she stepped forward, slicing between the teenager and the singer, to press one hand tight against Akechi's chest. He let out a throaty, angry gasp but the fabric ceased its burning.

"That beast is not welcome in the Velvet Room until it can be controlled." Lavenza said evenly. He let out a sharp gasp as her hand tightened its grip. A small dribble of blood slipped out of his mouth. "Igor warned me about you, Loki, and your malevolent ways. You are a piece of this boy, I will admit, but you will not have him until he can have you. So remember what you've been told…"

He eyes narrowed to slits, staring at the half formed creature perching on Akechi's shoulders.

" _You are not yet welcome here._ "

Steam rose along with Akechi's screech as Loki faded behind him, falling to his knees in his plain white shirt and black slacks. Belladonna watched for a moment then resumed her singing, Nameless having not stopped his piano cords for a single moment. Lavenza kneeled down next to the moaning brunette teenager, pushing his hair away from his face to place a hand on his fevered brow. She didn't like having to do this but Igor and her had discussed it in private. It was how it HAD to be. It was how Akechi had been kept from rampaging the Velvet Room after manifesting into the cells below Igor and his attendant.

She closed her eyes tightly, remembering.

 _-I wish it did not have to be this way, Lavenza, but it must. Until he's ready to use Loki, TRULY ready, I have suppressed it. As is, however, he is not content enough with that part of himself to truly utilize it as it should be utilized.-_

 _-Master…is this not wrong? To suppress the Persona, the true self…-_

 _-He is already suppressing it. It is only by the sake of Yaldabaoth that he has access to it at all. Otherwise his self, mired in destructive thoughts and selfishly vengeful motives, would not have come to him. He cannot believe he is 'right' when his Persona represents so much wrong.-_

 _-And of Robin Hood…?-_

 _-I do not yet know the answer to the manifestation of that one. It appears to be fairly recent, and have some sort of moral compass that is not manifesting within Loki. It has a sense of control and lacks the ability to cause madness. He will need someone to fight alongside him anyhow…Robin Hood must stay.-_

 _-But why? Why can he even manifest two Personas? He may be a Wild Card but the only time that has happened before has been when there was another soul living within the Wild Card. It's not a naturally occurring phenomenon.-_

 _-Mmh. Well, my dear Lavenza, it could just be that he is 'manifested' in two different forms. Perhaps we have yet to see the 'true self' of Goro Akechi. Perhaps someday we will. Until then, I need you to help me in suppressing the beast. It cannot be controlled until Goro Akechi can control HIMSELF. Understood?-_

 _-…Yes, Master. I do.-_

She had understood, of course.

But with the aria of the soul floating around her, Goro Akechi's head lolling haplessly in his lap, Lavenza wasn't quite sure she really did. She could see pain on his face. It hurt to repress a Persona, everyone who lived in the Velvet Room knew that. And she knew well that this boy had a Persona that was not fully controlled. But something—was it guilt, she thought? Or was it sorrow, even pity? Something, anyhow, was rising in her throat as she watched the pained expression on the face of the child below her.

He called her a child.

Yet he was even moreso than her.

Broken, crying, in pain, mauled by demons that he had no way of defending himself from.

Demons that could not be swatted away because they lived with him. She stroked the Wild Card's hair carefully, fingers carding through the thick brown mass. Attending to Goro Akechi was nothing like what it had been like to attend to Akira Kurusu. Her memories were muddled in concerns of her time as Justine and Caroline but Akira had always been fooling and helping her as much as she had been doing so to him. It felt like a competition, even like a date of sorts. The kind of tension, thick and tense and yet not at all bad, that existed between lovers.

With this boy, however, it was different.

With this boy it felt like the kind of tension between mother and child.

Lavenza sighed.

"I'm sorry. I hope one day…" Her voice caught in her throat. One hand lifted to her eye—a stray tear. She hadn't even known she could do that but all she could do was shake it off. "…I hope one day you'll be complete."

The aria of the soul played behind them continuously as the small girl rocked the head of the boy who was not quite an adult but not yet a child.


	5. Chapter 5

" _Oh God let me out, can you let me out, can you set me free from this dark inner world? Save me the last beat in the soul."_

He had stayed comatose for nearly a full week now. Lavenza was not familiar with the inner workings of human needs—she herself did not need to eat, to drink, to sleep. But she knew for certain that people should not be asleep this long. With spells she had been staving his hunger, staving his thirst, holding back whatever could keep Goro Akechi from slipping from comatose to a state far worse than such. For all that could be said the boy was now completely healthy. Perhaps even moreso than the average human, despite the irony of once being on the brink of death.

Yet for all the good health he was keeping, he would not awake to enjoy it. She bit her lip in frustration at the boy lying on the simple blue and white-sheeted mattress in front of her. Akechi's head simply lolled to one side, his brow furrowing. Lavenza quickly took a gaze around the room nervously—it almost made her laugh, for who would be spying on her in a room she made herself—then carefully sat down at the boy's side to run a hand across his forehead. She noted that even in sleep Akechi made to flinch away from the touch.

He was burning up.

Lavenza gave a heavy sigh, adjusting on the velvet blankets to stare out to the edges of the room. They seemed to blur in her line of sight and haze away into a void. Yet somehow her vivid yellow eyes seemed to stay adjusted, staring pointedly at something that didn't quite seem to be there. Softly her hands pressed down on the sweating forehead below her—she received only a coughing hiss in return as the boy tried to turn away from her in his sleep.

"This isn't playing fair, Loki."

She didn't have to turn around to see the beastly Persona looming over the unconscious body of its owner. Swirling white and black spikes, a grotesque attempt to form eyes from madness, turned in her direction. Lavenza refused to budge, refused to turn to the creature and look at it. For that was what Loki really wished to provoke. What it did, it did for attention. Supplying it would only give it glee and she had no interest in providing that sick entertainment for it.

Still, it was the root of her problem now, as it loomed over the brunette boy. Long fingers ghosted over its user's cheeks, ever so slightly grazing the small hand on Akechi's forehead. Loki's touch sent shivers down her spine. It was an odd, otherworldly sensation, too otherworldly even for someone like herself who dwelled in a land of dark blue and illusions. The fingers had the sensation of both intense heat and freezing cold all at once.

Like the sensation of insanity, and the sensation of death.

Lavenza's head stayed firm.

"We may not have ages like them," Lavenzea gestured at Akechi. "but we must at least pretend that we have learned from our years of existence. This is childish. Stop using your hold on the boy to keep him comatose and feverish. You will accomplish nothing in doing so and you may well stab yourself in the foot."

A hiss from behind her back, akin to the sound of ice touching a burning hot surface. Lavenza sighed. "That is a brazen lie and you know it. You would never drive the boy's fever to death because it would give you nothing. Only your own demise. If he leaves the world of the living then you follow. And everything it may possibly entail. You couldn't possibly believe I would fall for this farce."

Silence ensued, just the thick sound of Loki's heavy breathing. She could feel it now, hot against her hand, Loki's face closing in on his master's as if he intended to rip the skin from the boy's face. If she didn't know better she would say the beast was grinning mirthlessly at the back of her head as it breathed hotly down on Akechi's face. Lavenza closed her eyes and took a deep breath; she was imagining slights. A Persona with no mouth could not grin mirthlessly at her nor could it breath down upon her. It just could fight.

Fight, and scream, and tear, and lie.

Akechi's entire body jerked under her hand and Lavenza started, finally whipping her head around. Her eyes travelled up the form of the creature atop him for a moment; its dark and confusing form seemed to blend into the background. The only part of him that vastly stood out in the haze of darkness was the red strip under its mask and the toppling crimson ropes hanging down from the back of its horns. As her eyes focused she shook immediately her head and gazed down at the boy below them both. It took quite a bit of her willpower to ignore the hissing cackle that seemed to come out of the tricky Persona she sat with.

His fever had flared, she could tell that much. The expression on his face had twisted into one of pain and distraught, with thin hands reaching upwards to grasp at empty air. One wrapped around the long red rope hanging off Loki's arm and immediately retreated as if struck. Lavenza narrowed her eyes; such a disharmony between a Master and a Persona. She had never seen such a thing before. Then again, she had never seen a Persona laugh at the pain of its Master before either.

"Muh…" Akechi groaned; the blonde leaned in eagerly, batting the Persona above him away.

"Are you awake?" Lavenza pressed.

"Mum…?"

"….N-no." Lavenza said hesitantly. For the first time her hand lightened its grip on the heated brow. "I'm not your mother."

She regretted her answer. The boy's face twisted in dismay, eye clenched shut so hard that it looked almost painful.

"D-don't." He coughed. "Don't take me back there."

"Don't take you back where?" Lavenza said quietly, moving to take his hands and place them back at his side. Instead the brunette gripped her small fingers in a vice grip. She flinched but ignored the pain. "Don't take you back where, Akechi? Where do you not want to go back to?"

"There." He breathed.

"Where is there, Akechi?" She paused. "…Goro?"

He jolted again, pressing his cheek against the pillow with clenched teeth. Loki clattered out a bitter laugh, moving its face aside Lavenza's cheek to emit that heated presence on her again. It was so close, and it laughed in such a cold way for such a burning being. Loki seemed to find it funny. Obviously he knew the answer to her question. Obviously he sought to chide and mock her for being ignorant of it all. No matter. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. This thing would not outdo her like it apparently believed it could do with such ease.

Personas were always so full of surprises though.

In an instant, as Loki's jagged and clawed hand took a hold of her entire head, Lavenza felt her eyes roll almost to the back of her head. Her mouth hung open and Loki sniggered spitefully, each carved claw under thick striped glove digging into the delicate porcelain skin of her cheeks and forehead. She could feel her body going limp—since when did mere Personas have such a powerful sway over something as strong as a Velvet Room Attendant, she wondered.

There was little time to think about it as she was shoved into confusion.

It was a dark room, a gritty room reflected in her eyes with a grainy photo-like filter, with many bunkbeds lining the walls. They were shoved closely together. The mattresses were dirty, stained with old marks of vomit and urine and some of which that looked almost like long dried blood. There were thin, sparse blankets spread across them—but not all of them. In a corner, almost out of eyesight, two young boys in cheap clothing were tugging at it and clawing at each other whilst an older girl in a ratty dress screamed at them. Her reflection could be seen, thin and lanky, in the dirt-speckled window behind her. It was the only one that did not have the curtains firmly pulled shut. Aside from that, the room was sparse.

Sitting on one bed close to the door was a small and slightly malnourished boy with dead brown eyes and poorly trimmed brown hair. He was staring at the floorboards as a woman lecturing him in snapping tones.

 _"We can deal with troubled children, young man. We can even deal with bothersome ones that get sent back here. But what we cannot tolerate is something as abrasive as being rejected in less than thirty minutes of meeting the parents! Do you have no restraint whatsoever?! Do you have no common sense in that thick little skull of yours?! They said they would never come back to this orphanage, much less come back for you! We are trying to help you and you are just making more and more and more PROBLEMS, Goro!"_

Lavenza started slightly, barely twitched in the grasp of the beast.

 _"I just told her the truth."_

 _"Oh Jesus, Goro. How many times do I have to tell you? There's a difference between being honest and truthful. Telling your foster mother that she is an empty, sterile HUSK is not being honest! It's cruel!"_

 _"But it's the truth. It's why she adopted me."_ His tone was bitter, hateful, even rejecting. A tone that no child in their right mind should carry yet here he was. _"It's the only reason anyone adopts me. Because they want to shove me in some…EMPTY spot that they can't fill on their own."_

 _"You should be lucky anyone tries to adopt you at all, you little miscreant!"_

 _"AND AS SOON AS I DON'T FIT INTO THAT SPOT RIGHT THEY SEND ME BACK!"_ The child shrieked hysterically, slamming his feet on the floorboards and turning on the caretaker. She stepped backwards. _"They don't want me! I'm not going to pretend like they do! I'm not a little girl, Shirotaki-san, and I'm not gonna play house! They don't want me! THEY DON'T WANT ME!"_

 _"…You disrespectful little child. A bastard like you should be glad that anyone wants to take you, yet you whine and cry like you DESERVE something even when your mother left her burden on us by dying thoughtlessly."_ The woman stepped forward to hiss. The brunette child's harsh façade fell for a moment, eyes wide and fearful as she stepped into his space. Lavenza moaned slightly, hands twitched as if to try and reach out. She couldn't—this was all past gone, now. _"You will go to sleep and you will do it NOW. You will go to your next adoption interview without any questioning. And you will act like a good, WELL BEHAVED child and at LEAST get out the doors this time or I swear to all that is holy that you'll regret ever being born!"_

Lavenza shuddered, the feeling running down her spine as the entire room went hazy. Colors mixed together, reconstructed on top of each other and erasing each other until they formed the shape of a new vision. There was no room, now. It was more like an encasing darkness…and then with a sudden, biting shock of red running through the black of the landscape there was a bow of a ship. The boy sat on the very tip with his legs dangling out over the water. Behind him sat a cellphone. It glowed brightly in the shape of a red eye.

It was covered in blood.

And aside him hovered the malevolent form of Loki.

She could see his face now—lined with streaks of his own blood and the smattered remains of the dark essence of Shadows. His hand held a limp grasp at what looked like a toy ray gun.

 _"This is him, is it."_

The Loki aside him nodded in affirmation.

 _"He ignored me. When I approached him. He pretended like I wasn't even there. He didn't even realize who I was."_ A pause followed by a defiant snort. _"He probably doesn't even remember that he met me."_

Again, the Persona aside him nodded.

 _"…I have homework, don't I. Pages upon page of middle school literature. It isn't going to do me much good, is it? He wouldn't act any differently when I approached him whether I was an honor role student or a miscreant. Perhaps he'd prefer a miscreant. Like himself. A sick, degenerate miscreant."_ A smile, altogether unpleasant, crossed Goro Akechi's face. _"Or maybe he'd prefer someone exactly like him. Someone who pretend to be important and special but creates disgusting worlds like these."_

He waved an arm at the ship behind him. The Diet Building sailed on, every unperturbed in the thick sea of buildings crashing under its pressure. The horizon, dark and red, reflected brightly across the helmet that lay discarded at Akechi's side. Upon his face it laid an eerie blood color that followed every contour of his face, every trace of his bitter smile. Loki said nothing, as he always did and always would, waiting for whatever conclusion of madness would come up in the boy.

 _"I can be that person, father."_

His words distorted, flattened, rang eerily in her ears and Lavenza felt as if she was screaming yet she could not open her mouth. Her entire body shook. Deep inside her core she knew, she KNEW that she could shake this beast off if she really put her mind to it. If she wanted to she could blow Loki into next week—it was her job as an Attendant to wrangle and cage these beasts. Right next to the place in her mind that knew this simple fact, she also knew that it would not happen until Loki was done. Because she wanted to know. She had to know.

She NEEDED to know.

 _"I can be that person, Shido-san."_

A bald man lounged in a chair behind a fine mahogany desk. The sunset fell across the room and enveloped them in the haze of mid-noon. In front him stood a young boy, barely fourteen, dressed impeccably and wearing a charming smile. It was all forced; in the back of her mind Lavenza could see images of him preparing in front of a dingy mirror and smiling over and over and over until he perfected the right one to fool the man in front of him.

And for all that effort, Masayoshi Shido was not fooled.

He sat in front of Goro Akechi, listening to the boy but not quite listening to him—as if he was looking through him. His expression was stoic but his thoughts seemed to flicker through dark eyes hidden behind amber glasses. His fingers flexed ever so slightly at the explanation of the boy's abilities; his mind seemed to process the pros and cons of this boy at his side. He carried out an order, a death sentence, and briefly Shido flickered away to be replaced by a woman on her knees with a gun at her head. She spoke in maddening riddles and words of futures to come and young hands shook as the shot was made. Angry yet fearful eyes brimmed with tears.

He was smiling again, when it all flickered back to Shido.

So was Shido.

 _"You can be that person. But you don't HAVE to be that person."_

Lavenza finally gasped, hands reaching up to claw at the Persona fingers around her head as she recognized a voice. Silky, calm, controlled, ever present, and so uniquely that of the Trickster, of the HERO. The memory she was in now did not seem to have a context. The background was ever changing. Even the teenager standing in front of Goro Akechi was flickering between outfits, glasses falling on and off, but tone and face never changing as he stared down the other Wild Card.

Right into the eyes. Right into the soul.

 _"How are you, Akechi?"_

 _"I'd like to see you smile. …No, that's not what I meant. Really smile."_

 _"I made this coffee myself, actually. For you? Why not you?"_

 _"I want to trust you. Don't make that face. I do."_

 _"You mean I can't?"_

A gunshot rang out; blood filled her vision.

 _"You can still be."_

 _"How are you, Akechi?"_

 _"You can still be. One of us."_

 _"You can be the person that he wants you to be. Or you can be the person that you want to be. You can be one of us."_

 _"Either way I'll still care about you."_

 _"Can you take my hand, Akechi?"_

 _"….Akechi?"_

Lavenza hit the floor desperately grasping for something to grab onto. Looking for _someone_ to grab onto as Loki loomed above her and Akechi's now still figure. She was hyperventilating and she knew it. Experiencing the memories of others, she tried to reason, was likely not an easy thing to do even in the most stable person. And Goro Akechi was coming apart at the seams, with only the thinnest of threads tying him together.

She managed to catch her breath, fists balling in the fabric of the bed as she pulled herself up aside the teenager. So that was the entirety of what made up this Persona who tormented the boy and kept him in constant pain. Suffering, struggling, doubt, rejection, hatred, and a trigger in his hand as his only friend. The firm new hands on her shoulders told her what kept it all at bay. Pristine white gloves of a large, powerful, silent form squeezed comfortingly as the looming Persona gazed down on the sleeping boy. For once Loki took a few steps back with fear apparent in its form.

The thinnest of threads.

She slipped a hand over Robin Hood's gloved one and glared across the bed with him. Loki's back buckled forward, hands balling up into fists as fire caught the ridges of his pointed form. A cloven hoof stomped angrily. A bright red sword, wrapped by a sharp pointed hilt, pulled out of nowhere to be brandished at those across from him—it did not seem to phase Robin Hood in the slightest. Pure white eyes just stared down menacingly at the beast across the bed from Akechi.

Loki stomped its hoof harder against the cool blue tiles.

 _I was here first._

Robin Hood tightened his grip on the blonde girl below it.

 _That does not mean he has to be you. That is what the Trickster believes._

Akechi's eyes creaked open, even as the crisscrossing Persona slammed down in loud anger and protest.

 _Who cares what the Trickster 'believes'! I am what is REAL!_

Akechi groaned, rubbing his head. Robin Hood shook its mighty head.

 _HE cares what the Trickster believes._

"Begone with you." Lavenza said in a quiet and lilting voice. As the white and black stripes disappeared into the backdrop the room, she locked eyes with those dreadful horns that sat in place of its eyes. They defiantly jutted out at her, rage emitting from every corner of Loki's being, screaming at her as it was banished from sight and thought. One final slam of its foot to let her know its thoughts: _this is not over yet, you stupid little girl. Or with you, you stupid oaf. I won't just go away overnight._

Lavenza just smiled mysteriously as the beast melted out of view, hanging off the bed as Akechi groggily sat up. His head tilted to the side as the massive white gloved hand cupped his cheek and ran up to his head, patting the brown hair gently. The recipient seemed a tad bit confused to see Robin Hood aside him but wasn't conscious enough to question it. Rather, he just awkwardly patted one of the large lower muscles of the Persona's arm. The hero-esque form lit up at its Master's action, blazing pride evident in the eyes tucked behind its metal visor. With how much smaller Goro Akechi was compared to Robin Hood, the childish glee in the thickly muscled Persona seemed almost comical.

Lavenza tucked her hair behind her ear as Robin Hood stood vigilante next to its Master, nodding at her firmly. She gave the creature an exaggerated curtsy that seemed to please it quite well. With a laugh, she turned away from them with a whip as she left the now calm Akechi with his curious second Persona.

"So that's where it comes from?" Lavenza hummed to herself thoughtfully. "Hmm. The Hero never fails to surprise me."


	6. Chapter 6

Note: It was pointed out that the whole 'Akechi-Akira' relationship wasn't particularly well defined in the previous chapter. While this was somewhat intentional, I do understand and feel it is necessary to put a little more framing to their interactions and to their overall take on each other. At least from Akechi's perspective since this story very strongly focuses on him. Keep in mind this is my personal interpretation of Akira, which I generally tend to paint as a fairly caring person. I suppose I should also note that I am a pretty big Akeshu fan so do not be surprised by any implications of Akeshu throughout this story. For now, it is NOT such a take, but it very well may become that. I realize the ship can be somewhat polarizing so consider this my warning for the readers.

Also, if anyone is curious, the beach depicted in this chapter (Kauapea Beach) is a real beach! It's an absolutely beautiful little beach, the name meaning 'Secret Beach' in Hawaiian and one of the top ten most quiet and secluded beaches in the world.

" _You are standing in the middle of another world. It's hard to feel your real emotions. You are smiling in a shirt wet with bitter tears…let me help you find a place to call home."_

"So you poked around in my memories."

"Yes."

"Mmh. Is that so."

Lavenza sat aside her current ward, knees folded against her chest as she allowed the waves come ashore to lap at her feet. Every now and then she would take a hesitant glance over at the brunette aside her; Akechi's face seemed solid set in a neutral expression as he stared over the horizon of the setting sun. Warm tropical air brushed through his loose hair, across his white shirt, across the hand that cupped the one knee in front of him. His other leg lay loose in the sand—his pantleg soaked up to the knee. He didn't seem to being paying it much mind.

"Where are we?"

"Kauapea Beach."

"Hawaii?"

"Yes." Lavenza ran her fingers through the soft but wet sand. "The Hero went here once with his comrades. Not here exactly. But to this country, to this place. I believe that you were, ah, caught up in work at the time."

"Yes, I believe that would be one way to put it." His words had become snappier, quicker, more unwelcoming. The blonde sighed; he was retreating into himself the moment anyone saw vulnerability. As if she would strike him with a baton for having lived a poor life. Perhaps she could strike him for going the wrong direction but she couldn't place any blame on him for the hand that life had dealt him. He may have been an ace but an ace with a low card was still a losing hand.

Perhaps, she thought, he didn't like that.

 _I don't want your sympathy._

She sighed.

"I don't pity you, Akechi. What you did is still wrong."

No response.

"He doesn't pity you either."

Sharp shoulders stiffened, the brunette boy biting his lip abrasively. Long fingers dug into the sand unwittingly, balling up clumps of half dry and half wet fiber to nest in the curves of his palm. Brown eyes darkened to a reddish shade as they stared across the horizon. Still he refused to look at the girl right next to him. Lavenza turned to look where Akechi did, her long blonde hair fluttering in the warm winds of the setting sun. The sounds of the lapping waves seemed to echo in both their ears.

"You have a lot of good memories of him, don't you?" Lavenza began. Akechi bit down harder on his lip. "He was kind to you. I know this; I knew him as well. He only ever wanted to help people. To save people."

"From their _pit of despair_." Akechi said dryly, sarcastically. She shook her head. "You think he's so good. So special."

"He is good. And he is special." Lavenza paused; she did not receive a reply. Akechi had shut her out again. The boy simply didn't want to hear it. "You have a lot of strong memories of him. He was the first one to reach out to you in a while, wasn't he? To really reach out to you, to try and take your mask off your face and see what was behind it all no matter the consequence. You were curious about him and he was curious about you. Even if you did sit on opposite sides of the spectrum."

"I don't—" Akechi began, but Lavenza raised a hand sharply.

"But curiosity and caring are not pity. Nor are they sympathy." Lavenza caught his eyes. Hers were so vivid, so ever changing, as if the pupil moved within the eye constantly to evaluate and examine him. Akechi could not help but be caught in her vice grip of a stare no matter how he wished to look away. " You hated it, didn't you? I felt it while he spoke, while he coaxed you. When he tried to bring you closer to himself. Whenever he told you anything that went past that boundary of your cat and mouse game, you…"

Akechi broke her stare and turned away.

"…you hated it."

"I hate everything about him and his little gang of imbeciles." Akechi said through grit teeth.

"Do you now."

" _Yes._ "

The sun was falling below the horizon as the stars began to prickle the sky. Lavenza clutched her legs closer to her chest, looking up as each of the constellations began to form in the sky above them. Each was a pinprick millions of miles away and yet she could still reach out her hands and cup them. She could still zero in on them. So far away, yet so deceptively close. Her fingers trailed the sky under it found the North Star. Lightly she circled her palms under the light as if she was holding it in front of her. Akechi had stopped paying attention to her—he was carving angry marks in the sand underneath them and swearing about how it was cold.

"Polaris guides travellers." Lavenza spoke up, her voice clear and crisp. Akechi's finger halted but he didn't turn to face her. "It is something that most sailors and nomads understand. True north lies directly under Polaris, directly upon the skies of the North Pole. But Polaris is not a talkative sort, nor does it provide its services because it cares about people. It's nothing more than a burning ball of gas so many millions of light years away from us. Beautiful, bright, and guiding…but in its own way cold and distant. If you can't find it or follow it properly then it isn't going to reach out and pluck you out of your _pit of despair._ That's YOUR job."

"So we're talking constellations now?" Akechi replied, deadpan. "How quaint."

"If you want _Polaris_ to save you, then you have to want to save yourself." Lavenza said sharply. "There is no pity from the North Star if you want to destroy yourself. There's CERTAINLY no pity from the North Star if you want to destroy the navigator who can discern true north for you."

"Then maybe _Polaris_ should stay out of other people's business and stop having a bloated savior's complex."

"Please. Don't be a child. You are only _trusted_ when you trust the North Star back. When you believe someone can help you then they truly can. When you don't then they can't do anything because you will never believe in their assistant and you will stay in the same place forever." Lavenza paused. "…For him, you felt that he had the ability to save others. For him, you even briefly had the fleeting idea that he could save you, didn't you? Even though he never really trusted you."

"He…"

"Because he _cared_ about you."

"I—"

"And for that crime," Lavenza interrupted. "You hate him. Yet to you he is also one of the only good things that ever happened to your life. After all, you may correct me if I'm wrong…but he was the source of Robin Hood, wasn't he? Silent so no words could be said, tricky as can be, ultimately a thief and a charlatan…but Robin Hood was a gentleman thief and a caring person. And he appeared unto you because for the briefest of moments, Akira Kurusu reminded you that you could still care about people. That's why you saved them, isn't it? The Phantom Thieves."

Akechi took a ragged breath; if the Attendant did know better, she would've thought the boy was holding back racked sobs. He clearly didn't like being torn apart like this and in a way she regretted being the one to do so. But she had felt in as she watched Akira Kurusu from the perspective of Goro Akechi—it was the sensation of caring for someone, and being cared for, all while dancing within the tension that no amount of could change that neither boy could trust the other.

For someone with such little grasp on social interaction, being around Akira Kurusu—a black hole of human bonding—had been hell for Akechi. He was disgusted by it, hated it, abhorred it, yet looked upon the boy that had so openly questioned his own stance in the middle of a studio full of people…and wanted to reach out. People were part of three categories in his life: the people who controlled him, the people who mocked him, and the people who adored him. Yet Akira Kurusu never solemnly and sternly fell into a single one of those categories.

He controlled him, with the mind game that they had played and he had ultimately lost. He mocked him, questioning his morals and motives and even his reasoning no matter if they were alone or in front of a crowd. And then, after all of that, he cared for him—acting as if the animosity that existed between them didn't matter as he reached out his hand to offer some sort of salvation. Akira Kurusu was everything and nothing at the same time. Brown-red eyes slid shut in thought, squeezing tight in distaste as his stomach churned and his heart constricted.

Akira Kurusu didn't fit into any of those groups. Nor did Akechi's relationship with the other boy. And if he were to be honest with himself that idea alone scared Goro Akechi to his very core.

He looked over his shoulder to the little girl sitting there. Her eyes were still vivid, almost glowing in the dark with an eerie yellow glow. Sometimes it was hard to remember that this child, so frail and small, was anything but. Her knowledge was as great as her power…and she certainly was no human being. With a groan he shut his eyes and let his neck roll back, body weighing down to fall against the sand so he could stare upwards at the sea of stars through his fingers.

"It's not important anymore." He breathed. Lavenza raised a slender eyebrow at his words, scooting away from her seat in the sand to hover above the boy questioningly. Akechi wrinkled his nose as his head was surrounded by thick blonde locks, the Attendant blocking his view of the stars as she gave him that ever familiar stare. Ever so slightly her head tilted to the side questioningly.

"Not important?"

"Yes. Not important." Akechi sighed as he pushed white blonde strands off his forehead and away from his tickled nose. "Maybe you're right, and maybe you're wrong. You certainly pose a plethora of… _unique_ questions. But at this point its just contemplation on things that can't be changed. Maybe he cared, maybe he didn't. All that matters now is that to him and his friends, I'm dead and I can't cause any more disarray in their lives."

"Did you plan to?"

"What?"

"Cause more disarray in their lives."

"I don't know." Akechi muttered, closing his eyes to block out the piercing gaze that he could now not escape from. "I went to Shido's Palace intending to kill them for good. I didn't necessarily plan to even have to deal with them ever again, much less that I would actually…"

"Die for them?"

"I'm not dead."

"But it was your intention."

"It would be better that way, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know. Do you think that's what they…what HE wanted when he raised his Persona to fight you? For you to die?" Lavenza cocked her head to the side again as Akechi opened one eye to give her a careful glance. _Bird-like_ was the only thing that came to his mind in describing the careful, quick, and precise way she moved. "I thought the one who you died under the hand of was yourself."

"Ah, Shido's cognition…"

"That wasn't what I meant." Lavenza said firmly. "I meant that our Joker reached out to try and bring you away from it all. And yet you think it would've been better if you actually died? That it doesn't _matter_ anymore?"

"It _doesn't_. We're not ever going to meet again. He's going to live a normal life now that this is all over." Akechi was silent for a moment, staring the girl down. "And I'm going to pay out a lifetime of service in your world, under the thumb of your master. Not much has changed, now has it? I'm still under the thumb of sonvabitches I don't understand while still trying to understand what I am."

"You are a Wild Card. So is he."

"Yes, you told me that."

"Then I'm sure you likely can deduce, with all your supposed excellent detective skills, that the Wild Card will _never_ live a normal life." Lavenza's glowing eyes seemed to narrow to slits. "Madness and misery follows the Wild Card. It's the responsibility of the boy to become the man and shift through madness and misery and find solutions, lest he sink into darkness. That is the burden of the Wild Card. It is your burden. And it has long been his…and will continue to be his."

"It doesn't end?" Akechi's eyes were wide. Lavenza smiled, forlorn and distant.

"It could, I suppose. But it does not seem to. I have heard of my sisters' having charges like him. And inevitably fate seems to remove any chance of normalcy from their lives." She moved away from Akechi to stare upwards to the sky; the light of the rising moon seemed to illuminate her entire form. "Some never had a chance to begin with and passed into an eternity of abnormality and suffering…some became lifelong soldiers against whatever threat the shadows could raise. Ultimately these are experiences that will change people forever. _Normal life_ isn't something they can ever really return to with a clear conscious."

"I…what are you trying to tell me?"

She turned to him, the wind picking up to pull at her hair and blow her bangs away from her forehead. Akechi was not sure if it was even the beach anymore; perhaps it was just Lavenza, and this great power she seemed to emit. Perhaps it was the sorrow that was trying to break through her neutral façade as she slowly closed long blonde lashes to take in a deep breath.

"They always, ALWAYS will return to the Velvet Room if they live." Her words were almost carried away on the wind as it picked up. "It is certainly still _important_ , Goro Akechi—because that was certainly not the last time you'll ever see them. Nor the last time you'll ever see Akira Kurusu."

Neither spoke. They just lay back as the wind carried their hair and the full moon shone down upon them, listening to the sea peacefully lap at the sand while Akechi's stomach tied itself into a dozen knots—each conflicting with the other. At the back of his throat gurgled a screech that stuck like a lump of spit in his mouth, sand digging painfully into his nails as he gripped tightly at the surface underneath him.

Aside him, Lavenza was the picture of peacefulness.

"It won't be immediately." She whispered. "But it will happen. It will be your choice whether you hide from your consequences and emotions…or face them."

The brunette just growled in response.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N This chapter has pretty much little to no Akechi, focusing in on Lavenza for a bit too since I think she's an important part of this whole puzzle. Specifically how since she was ripped apart, the 'lessons' that the Velvet Attendant typically learns from the protagonist might be distant and blurry to her. I'm also sorry it's taken me so long to update this fic. I was updating it really rapid fire and then college applications and study abroad applications hit me right in the kisser and stole all of my attention.

" _The heart is praying. When the moon reaches the stars, if you hold me tight, I'll feel your heartbeat so close. Will this last long…?"_

A hobby. He had said she needed a hobby.

It had been a casual but precisely marked comment made while fencing. Lavenza was familiar enough with the art to at least hold a decent match with Akechi. His movements were fluid and practiced and move often she found herself at a standstill; swordplay had never especially been her forte. Against a trained mercenary she could rely only on her quick wit rather than any fencing skills. Many times it almost brought them to a draw until Akechi flicked his sword away from hers and under the hilt to slap it out of the Attendant's hands.

"You aren't too practiced."

"And you are disturbingly practiced."

"It was a hobby of sorts. You should think about finding one."

Lavenza wrinkled her nose. Such a rude thing to say. She was a Velvet Room Attendant—she didn't have time for hobbies like human beings did. There was a flow to be maintained and lives to be observed and even through all his sarcasm she knew that Akechi knew that. Sometimes she wished that the boy would at least put on some amount of pleasantry when talking to her. He never would, she knew, because Lavenza had seen a little too much of him. But it never hurt to hope.

It certainly did manage to irritate her, though.

Limber hands quickly and mindlessly clicked pieces of metal together. With a sharp whirring sound, long silvery rods shot out of the stump she had been fiddling with while thinking. She drew her hands away and allowed the two pieces to sew themselves together from within. It was odd to look down at what for all intensive purposes looked to be a human arm. It was only by the grace of the shoulder open to reveal dark cogs and covered with a thick spur of black metal curving around the joint. It lay in front of her unmoving and shining in the afternoon sun.

Lavenza tilted her head to the side.

Why had she come here? She couldn't remember.

Akechi had smart mouthed her, she had ended their fencing practice shortly after, and promptly parted ways with him to allow him a much needed rest. Yet his words had echoed in her head that she needed a hobby and her feet had somehow taken her here. Sometimes the blonde had trouble remembering the time before Yaldabaoth ripping her apart but she knew this island. Lately she found herself going to the abandoned facilities on it when she was in a mood she couldn't quite comprehend. She remembered this place as being one of the first and few times she had left the Velvet Room before the Trickster had come along. Her sister Elizabeth, always tricky and sly, had taken her out one day. She had told Igor that she wanted to show the newest child of the room the places of her past.

So she had come to this island. Elizabeth never really explained herself—it wasn't typical of the woman to do anything that was bluntly apparent. Lavenza had thought the place she was brought to be odd, this island dome filled with overgrown flora and building after building of scrap metal pieces. Each one looking so disturbingly like her own arm, her own leg, even her own head. Elizabeth had laughed at her unease and told her that these were nothing more than automatons. Metal people used in a hidden war begun by something called a 'Kirijo Group'.

"They died fighting each other, you see, by the command of those who made them." Elizabeth explained. There was some sort of mirth in her older sister's voice that Lavenza didn't understand at the time; now, she recognized it not as mirth but as some sort of distant longing. "Those people wanted to understand what a Shadow was, what a Shadow could be, but they were not strong enough to protect themselves or even face themselves thus they created a series of Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons to do it for them. So they could better protect themselves, they had their children fight to the death to find out which ones were the most powerful. Thechildren with the senses most strongly tuned by battle moved on to protect them from the Shadows."

"They protected themselves with their children?" Lavenza questioned. Elizabeth's smile twitched.

"Oh yes. The children under Kirijo suffered greatly for the mistakes of their group."

Somehow Lavenza had a feeling that Elizabeth was not talking about the robots. Despite the bittersweet feeling that hovered around her older sister, the young blonde had come back to the island occasionally. She had seen people there, occasionally; one or two of the gynoids were still running and very alert. They never saw her. She wouldn't allow it, blinding them with her magic. But she had a feeling that both of them, the stern eyed blonde and the axe wielding blue haired robot, could detect her somehow. When they looked through her she had the feeling that they were looking AT her.

Yet they did nothing.

Elizabeth was right. Their senses HAD been strongly tuned by battle. But whatever history they haunted was past. The Kirijo Group hardly visited the island any longer and the last human she had seen skulking around had been a red haired boy with a fearsome yet confusing aura. Like the robots he had looked at her as if he could see right through the blindness placed on him. Yet he immediately would grumble irately and turn away. His appearances on the island had become lesser and further spread out; eventually he was yet another gone for good.

It was for the best, really. The island was beautiful but it was nothing but a graveyard.

She hummed as she examined another piece. If she was correct it would clip the arm into an upper body. There were so many of those, cracked and out of use with worn latex stretched across the smooth busom of the breastplate. Each and every one of them was from a different model type. Some of them would work together and some of them would not. It was a matter of trial and error.

She'd been working on and off with these pieces ever since she'd returned to a single form. Half assembled dolls with dead eyes lay all across the island now. Every time Lavenza had gotten near to even halfway completing one of them, she had run into a roadblock—a lock that had no joint to push into, a circuit board that just couldn't be found, a rod that wasn't long or short enough. It was frustrating yet she found herself back on the island every time. The girl was not a mechanic or technician by any means but as she ran her hands across the pieces she could feel a certain life in them. Each piece was drawn to another piece with a beautiful preciseness that brought her a certain sense of peace, no matter the violent origins of the metal beneath her.

She paused. Was that a hobby? It had only appeared after she had met with the Trickster and experienced the feeling of being captured within her own body. Her eyes slanted slightly as her left hand grazed over her right. Just the feeling of being able to touch her own skin was a relief. For close to a year she had been torn into two and blind to reality, as if asleep yet somehow awake at the same time. She shifted on her folded legs to look at a detached head at her side curiously. It had skin as pale as alabaster and choppy short hair that curved around the frame of its face. Delicate black lashes lay against cheeks, small powder pink mouth motionless. A sharp metal hairband curved around her head to meet where ears should be. At her neck, wires hung lifelessly down between Lavenza's fingers.

She wondered if this head knew what it felt like to be awake and asleep.

Did automatons dream?

She supposed anything was possible if she could try desperately to reach her hand out to the Hero while torn into shreds. The head in her hands tilted sideways slightly as to mimic life. As if this dainty feminine entity was awake and speaking to her about her thoughts on the matter. Her thoughts on being made by a powerful entity she could never understand to serve the purpose of protecting creatures that she could never truly be. Lavenza couldn't help but let out a stifled laugh.

Then she dropped the head on the ground.

No, she had certainly not found herself a hobby. If she were to understand Akechi right, hobbies were meant to be relaxing. They were meant to take the indulger out of the fray of everything and focus in just on a single thing. Just that one thing that made them happy. Working on these gynoids, Lavenza decided, did not make her happy. If anything it elicited a deep clutching pain that seemed to grasp at her entire body. To look at that which _looked_ human but could never truly _be_ human.

 _Am I 'human' like Akira and Akechi…_

 _…or am I more 'human' like these metal copies of their forms?_

She bit her lip, sliding her hands down the forehead of the sleeping robot and down its cheeks to rest on its neck. That same call of distinct but distant life rang out like it rang out from the arm pieces—reaching out to the rest of itself to try and become one again. The blonde could not help but think of her ward at that moment. Like the broken automaton, Akechi had a piece in him that begged to be one again. To connect to life and everything it meant once again. But just like still form in Lavenza's hands, he was not entirely capable of doing that on his own.

 _Is she…_

Lavenza tilted the robot's head to the side.

 _…more close to being them than I am?_

She didn't know. Like the humans she had encountered, like the wards under her care, these robots that had visited the island beforehand had a distinct feeling of life and longing. They were powered by artificial means yet they seemed to feel everything that human beings could. She had seen the bright smile of the blue haired one once—it held a joy bright enough to light up the entire room. From the gynoid's quieter, sterner blonde counterpart she had seen a sadness and longing so powerful that it seemed to occupy the full room if she allowed it to show.

She hugged the head to her chest.

She felt a burning in her chest.

And still, Lavenza had trouble figuring out what these intense jolts meant.

Were they what the gynoids had shown to feel? The joy of being around others, and the sadness of loss? Or were they what Akira and Akechi had shown her? The determination to see the new day, and the rage uncontrollable from being wronged near constantly? Lavenza clutched the head tighter against where her heart would have been, as if willing the detached and now lifeless ears to hear what wasn't there. What could not POSSIBLY be there.

She let out a choked, sad laugh.

No wonder it was so hard to help Akechi Goro. Figuring out the existence of another was quite difficult, she decided, when you had yet to quite figure your own existence out. In the back of her clouded mind she remembered Margaret and she remembered Elizabeth. She even remembered a young man, Theodore, the only brother she had in the Velvet Room. All of them seemed to have made a journey to go forth and learn what their Hero was learning.

Meanwhile, Lavenza had been trapped behind foggy bars the whole time. What she had learned about humanity, about feeling, about LIVING and BEING…

Well, she wasn't sure if it was clear yet.

As Lavenza hugged the head to her bodice she wondered if it could hear the wishes of whatever sort of heart and soul she might have. And even when she banished it to the back of her mind while reminding herself that she still had work to do with Akechi, the thought still lingered in the back of her mind.

 _Can I still learn to live and be?_


	8. Chapter 8

A/N We'll be moving into 'Stage Two' of Indifference Impossibility as of this chapter, where an actual threat rises and Akechi is required to pace up his training and fulfill his role. Sadly I'm not all that happy with how this chapter came out but que sera, sera I guess.

 _"Inside of agony, those butterflies cry out in decay. So boy, help them fly away—inside of agony, shaking violent, the world's tears fall on him until the new dawn."_

Lavenza sat at Akechi's side with her hands folded in her lap. His own were crossed over his arms, fingers squeezing nervously at his white dress shirt but eyes not betraying a single emotion. They both stared quietly at the hook nosed man sitting in front of them holding his face up from the chin. Igor had been in complete silence since they had been called in twenty minutes previously. His gloved hand detracting and retracting from a fist as unusually long fingers tapped out a rhythm on the desk.

The Attendant felt a push against her leg—Akechi was nudging her with a knee and gesturing at the man with his shoulder. She simply shook her head. Lavenza may have been torn apart but like any of Igor's creations, she knew her Master's nature and knew how to live with it. Patience was key with the mysterious boss of the Velvet Room. Though it was not as if she expected Akechi to show any such thing in the face of this world. He didn't understand it like Igor's creations did.

This sanctuary in the sea of the human consciousness.

"Have you felt it, Lavenza?"

She stiffened.

"Felt…what, Master?"

Igor chuckled wistfully and shook his head. "I see. Well, it is of no matter. I have preoccupied you with such a large responsibility that it can be forgiven if you miss something here or there. But it can't be put off much longer. I have spoken with Nameless to confirm what I have been sensing as of late. It's very unfortunate but the song of the human consciousness has gone off of its tune yet again."

"Something's coming." Lavenza breathed out. Akechi raised a thin brow.

"What do you mean, the song of the human consciousness has gone off tune? What is 'coming'?" He inquired. His demanding dark red eyes locked with Igor's beady black ones and the Master of the Velvet Room tugged his glove in amusement. "You people say so much but I must say myself, it's almost as if you aren't saying anything at all most of the time."

"There's always something that can put the human consciousness off rhythm. Oftentimes it stands to threaten your world." Igor chuckled deeply. " _Humanity_ , as you likely came to find in your time among them, is a facet of life that's both very powerful and very easy to manipulate. Such things should not exist together, most certainly not with the amount of power that humanity has taken over both its own world and the world beyond it. But they do, so there is always something that runs the risk of guiding them into destruction—TRUE destruction. Those from, ah, our side. The other side."

"And I am supposed to just believe that you and your little troop would do no such thing." Akechi challenged. Igor flat out laughed then, a dark and throaty sound that echoed across the walls of the rooms.

"We are the first guard against humanity's incessant desire to destroy itself, boy." Igor leaned forward. "And I would do no such thing if I did not have a vested interest in the success of your kind. I would kindly ask you to believe me in this: we may be the first guard but it is no way an obligation. It is a favor to a benevolent being as well as a personal investment."

"Personal investment? What kind of personal investment could you possibly have in all of this?" Akechi's eyes slid across the room slowly, investigating each and every perfected blue and black groove of the unnatural yet beautiful world. "As far as I can tell you have nothing to do with our world. You create things that aren't human like your Attendants, and summon the beasts that attack people inside their conscious. Aren't you closer to the kind who _assault_ us rather than the kind who _assist_ us?"

"One malicious God does not the entire spiritual world make." Igor replied. Akechi snorted quietly under his breath but didn't provide any comeback. Beside him, the blonde haired little girl was looking back and forth between them nervously. Igor had not interacted with Goro Akechi a great deal yet. She knew that her Master knew OF him and of his…behaviors but knowing was far from actually dealing with the boy's argumentative, stubborn, and latently angry mannerisms. The last thing she wanted was for them to feud and yet it looked like they were headed exactly there.

"…The malicious Gods seem to make up the majority of the pushers and shakers, though." Akechi held out his hand in a cocky gesture. Lavenza thought he looked like a bit of a puffed up bird.

"Well of course, my boy. When you do things RIGHT, no one ever bothers to think of you. They think you've done nothing at all. When you do things WRONG, people notice immediately and draw all their attention to it." Igor leaned back. "It's far easier to point out the flaws of something rather than what has been done correctly. Wouldn't you say?"

Akechi didn't reply. He simply hunched back into his chair and glared back at the man with obvious irritation on his features. The puffed bird now seemed as if his feathers had been ruffled.

"Besides, your kind are easily the most interesting things I've ever found."

" _Interesting?_ " Akechi's tone was nigh incredulous, with his hand gripping deathly tight on his arm now. Igor waved the comment off and Lavenza sighed, burying her face in her hands. The Wild Cards usually could find such a good balance with Igor, or so she was told. Apparently Akechi was not interested in being anywhere near that balance. Or anywhere near Igor, if his obvious frustration wasn't telling enough.

"There is a travelling energy of the subconscious that has been freed."

Both of them looked up from their ruminations abruptly.

" _Travelling_ energy? You mean like…a moving Palace?" Lavenza said cautiously. Igor paused to consider then nodded. "That's not possible. _Palaces_ shouldn't be possible anymore. Not after what the Phantom Thieves did."

"I'm not entirely sure of what it is, myself. The energy it holds is similar to the Mementos of the Holy Grail…" Igor held up a hand to stop both Lavenza and Akechi's protests before they came. "…but it is less organized. There's no real flow to it, no center that seems to control it. Not that such a thought is comforting—something uncontrollable can be even more dangerous than something under a sturdy hand. As of the moment it is not even that powerful but it is alarming, to say the least. Particularly as we've never seen anything quite like it before."

"Where IS it?" Lavenza pressed. Akechi stayed silent, calculating, as he watched the exchange between Master and Creation.

"At the current it seems to be lingering around larger cities. Larger populations. The subconscious harmony in Europe is extremely off tune right now. We can't be sure if this is the result of whatever this energy, this supposed Palace, is..." Igor paused, as if trying to grasp at the proper words. Anything that would frame such a mystery properly. "…but its fair to assume that it is highly dangerous. Recently its been hovering around Paris, France like a magnet."

"And you're sending us there, I assume." Akechi stated dryly.

"That's up to Lavenza. I put you in her charge for a reason. What you do and where you go is ultimately her decision. If it suits her needs and timing…then I would like you both to investigate this matter thoroughly. BOTH of you." Igor replied. The blonde Attendant's back shot up like a shock had gone through her, eyes widening in surprise. She had not expected such a respectable level of responsibility over their ward, much less over an important matter such as this. "That said, I would strongly encourage the both of you to head off to Paris for the time being. Nothing drastic has happened so far but when one ignores the little things, they often can become the biggest problems a man could face."

With that, the chair Igor sat in swiveled around to face away from them. Though Akechi looked ready to protest again, Lavenza took both his hands and pulled him to his feet. The boy still seemed somewhat thrown off by her unusual properties—not many would expect a girl of her size to be able to force a teenager to his feet much less push him forcibly out into the hallway. Behind them, Igor and his office seemed to melt away into a palette of blues and purples. The brunette boy looked back to see that even the doorway had melted in onto itself, leaving him staring blankly at a grey-blue wall.

"Do you feel you are ready to do this?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's simply a question. Do you feel you are ready to do this? We will be forced to leave the Velvet Room and return to the conscious world for a long period of time. We…YOU will walk among people again." Lavenza explained. Taking a step forward she placed herself parallel to his chest, craning her neck to meet bright yellow eyes with defensive dark red ones. He didn't as much as twitch. "We haven't trained fully yet. This could be an opportunity to further explore your potential. But if you aren't ready to return to them then I understand."

It was a rare moment of sheer hesitation that passed across Goro Akechi's face. He had always been a man who was sure of his methods and even of his madness. Nothing had ever stopped him from trying to get what he reached for, not even the threat of being considered morally repugnant. The world was morally repugnant as far as he was concerned. Why couldn't he be, too? He had been brutally honest and in response the world had told him to lie instead. They applauded him when he was a false celebrity but turned against him just as easily. He had been soft and it had killed him.

He had no reason to feel sympathy for the world or its people. There was no reason for him to believe that he had a place there. Yet there was an obnoxious tugging sensation in his chest. It hadn't been present until earlier that prior year, when he had first met Akira Kurusu and his ragtag group of hopefuls, and it had only gotten worse the more he had gotten to know them and see their method. Akechi had hoped to kill it with that bullet through the head of the Joker but they had evaded even that. All on the wings of hope and nothing more. They SHOULDN'T have been able to outsmart him and outmaneuver him on his own chessboard but they had.

And because of their hope he had chosen to let himself die.

For them. For _people_. Nothing more than people.

It hadn't been a bad feeling. He didn't like the idea behind it but it hadn't been a bad feeling in any way.

 _Hurt like hell though._

"Akechi?"

One small finger grasped at his white shirt as Lavenza's head tilted to the side. She was still looking at him intently. Akechi could see the same thing in her eyes that he saw in their eyes. It was a bright flame that made her already vivid eyes even more intense. _Hope._ Just like them this little girl hoped for a new day where things would be better, and believed in that hope like nothing else.

He turned his head to the side, breaking eye contact with her before sighing loudly. "We'll be in Paris again, I assume?"

"Yes. Whatever this is, it seems to be attracted to that area. It doesn't seem like the Master knows why. Either that or we don't yet need to know." Lavenza's grip tightened on his sleeve when she saw disgust pass across the brunette's features. "Do you doubt Master Igor?"

"Yes." Akechi answered without a single shred of hesitation or shame. He hadn't trusted the man from the moment he met him, and knowing about the entire hubbub behind the scenes of Yaldabaoth and the Palaces had not won him over in the slightest. The Beast would not have tried to take Igor if Igor wasn't someone who could influence the world with a flick of his pinkie. Yet the Master of the Velvet Room had been constantly evasive and mysterious even to the Attendants that he created, despite their obvious unending loyalty to him. It didn't do much enflame a sense of trust in the ex-detective.

 _It reminds you too much of Masayoshi Shido and how much he evaded you when you worked under him._

Yet the Attendant herself didn't seem to care. If anything, Akechi's response had carved a deep frown across her features. Stupid kid. He sighed. "…yes, I doubt him, but I don't doubt that he knows what he's talking about. As is it seems like the best way to go about this 'training' that I agreed to do with you. So I'm not going to question it too much. It's not like it means anything to me anyways."

"…You're lying. It does mean something to you, and I can feel that. But I'll accept it for now." She hummed, producing a book from behind her back. With a curt nod she flipped on her heels and turned away from the brunette before he could protest. Fingers splayed out across the side of the blue grey wall of the side. From her palm blossomed a blue butterfly pattern that spread across the wall in front of them—Akechi swore for a moment he could see the wings beating and feel the wing from them coursing across his cheeks. He couldn't be sure. It was only momentary. The butterfly faded away as soon as he could even recognize what it was,

In its place lay a door.

The wood was a dark navy and plain in form. Yet a wrought iron gate covered the entire frame, designs curving across the form to reach into a rose shaped handle. When he took a step back, Akechi squinted; the butterfly shape he could've sworn he had just seen was shaped out in delicate metal curves. Below it three lines led downwards into four simple circles—each one had a different gemstone in it. The first was a lightly colored sapphire that popped against the darker frame. The second was a topaz that matched the bright color of the Attendant's eyes. The third was a ruby that shimmered brightly and proudly aside its companions.

The fourth slot was empty.

 _How strange…_

"This is our door to the other world." Lavenza took his hand and pressed an object into it; when she drew away Akechi realized it was a long key. It had a light greenish-blue sheen to the metal and was shaped somewhat like a spoon, a dual face of black and white printed across the top. "And this is the key back to this world. Without it, you as a human being cannot travel in between this world and ours."

"Can you?" He questioned.

"Yes. I can come and go as I please. And if you absolutely need me to take you back to here, then I will." Lavenza stated. Her hand was wrapped around the rose shaped gate handle. "Because I will be accompanying you to find out what this mysterious 'energy' is. I hope I'm not imposing."

"…Not at all." He replied. No more was said as he shielded his eyes from the bright light behind the Velvet door in front of them. The sapphire, topaz, and ruby in the wrought iron gate frame lit up brightly. Their light travelled through the metal and wrapped around the rose handle as if embracing the Attendant's hand. Lavenza's hand secured firmly around his wrist as he was pulled forcibly through alongside her, tears welling up from the pain of the light of the new day. But he was only pulled further along, closer so he could hear Lavenza's whispered words.

And with a blink, they were both gone from the hallway. The light of the door gleamed eerily down the dark halls of the unreal Velvet Room.

 _It is January 1_ _st_ _._

 _YOUR January 1_ _st_ _._


	9. Chapter 9

A/N Sorry for the long hiatus. I've had a lot of work, school, and paperwork to deal with in the last month and a half. And to be honest I'm going to have more to deal with in the next coming months (I won't be here for pretty much all of July but I'll still try and work on my fanfiction as well as I can). Sorry for the slow update rate and I do appreciate your patience. Also please note that there will be a smattering of original characters from here on out to support the plot.

" _Those long days pass by that door like late summer, then fade away. I find my way through the favorite tune that fills me with those sounds—I can't remember the way you smile. I have no way to tell you not to walk away and yet sorrow still ties me."_

"It's…quaint."

Lavenza gazed across the dark grey interior of the apartment; like they had been promised, it was very threadbare. Patches of heavy dirt and dust were interrupted by occasional cleaner square patches, likely once covered by paintings and photographs of whoever had been there before there. The kitchen area was squashed together with the living room—the grime on the stove raised doubt in her mind whether it worked or not. Each counter was coated with a similar blanket of filth. Across the entryway where they stood was a cut up couch turned on its side. Whatever shade the leather had once been, it was now just a sickly yellow color. At least, it certainly looked it with the midday sun boring down on it from the open door behind them.

Akechi carefully placed his foot on the cushion in front of him and pushed forward. The couch didn't as much budge. With a sigh, the teenager swept his hands under Lavenza's armpits to hold her above his head while he climbed over to the backside. Both of them fell inelegantly in a pile of newspaper piled on the other side. Upon inspection, they all seemed to be shredded remains of lottery results and celebrity gossip magazines. He let the scraps fall through his fingers as he rose to his feet to inspect the room.

"And they always talk about how cheerful and high class Paris is." Akechi mused to himself as he straightened his shirt cuffs out. One polished loafer rubbed a circle in the dust of the floor with the front of the sole; a small indent, perhaps as deep as the fingerprint of his thumb, was readily visible. He sighed. "We're going to need cleaning supplies. Can I ask why you chose this… _lovely_ little apartment, exactly?"

"Because they didn't ask questions."

"Ah. I see." Akechi had to hold back a sharp laugh. He supposed that it would generally be challenging to convince a renter to give out their keys to a dead man accompanied by a ghostlike child. Only a wreck of an apartment like this would've been willing to let them in. It wasn't exactly like they had anything to fill it with, anyways—they had walked right into the city of Paris without even a single box to their names. All they had was a dark blue shawl that Lavenza had tied around her neck; the long fabric now drug in the dirt behind her. Akechi shook his head and laced his fingers around her neck to untie it and lay it aside the window.

He coughed as he struggled to pull the stubbornly sticky window frame up; as it finally loosened and relented, a gust of dust seemed to pull itself out the window. The cold afternoon air graced his face and the teenager sighed as he rested an elbow on the wooden frame, completely ignoring the creak under the minimal weight. The sight was not an enchanting one. Their building was buried behind rows and rows of block-like cement squares speckled with porches and windows, laundry hung out to dry across banisters and cardboard taped loosely over broken glass. It was by the sheer virtue of that they were in the furthest room that he could see past them to an empty dirt square with a selection of leaf-barren trees. Men and women in heavy coats milled around the areas with their all to their name dragged on their backs and in carts. Beyond that the streets curved upwards into rows of stores and cafes. The further from their decay, the more fancy they seemed to get.

"We have a lovely view of the graffiti on the neighbor's wall. You should come take a look at it. Very avant-garde." Akechi remarked sarcastically. It didn't even earn him a glance from the blonde, who was running a finger through the grime on the stove and inspecting it. He shook his head and laid his forehead against the frame next to his elbow. If Akechi were to be honest, this sort of accommodation was nothing he wasn't used to.

He had put on a nice image back in Tokyo—clean and pressed clothing, expensive blazer, fancy briefcase, styled hair, all of the works. But it was entirely for show. The price of the briefcase alone had almost caused him to starve for a month. His apartment back home (if he could even call that city home anymore) had been barely the size of the one they currently sat in, and just about as run down. He had spent many an evening locking multiple deadbolts that had been installed on his door before settling down to a meal of Lawson rice balls and a premade drink that could possibly (and laughably) be called coffee if one were to stretch the definition. It had been jammed right between a small shrine and a towering electronics company, and he had learned to sleep with a lullaby that consisted of car horns and brakes.

At least here he was higher up, he supposed. The busier road wasn't as close either. It had been a long time since he had slept without that endless cacophony surrounding him—his time in the Velvet Room had not ever been a time of peaceful sleep. Nightmares, nonstop nightmares, with Loki right at his side. Maybe in his new shithole he could finally get some rest.

 _Though you know they still have work for you…_

Akechi glanced over at the Velvet Room Attendant sneakily, trying to avoid her curt and determined gaze. He was surprised to find that she had turned around to stare, head cocked curiously to the side, at the doorway. Her gaze was intent and guarded—it wasn't too different from the expressions he often found himself faced with. With a raised eyebrow the brunette leaned back from the window frame to see what the small girl was so hypnotized by.

Another girl.

Standing in the doorway, right behind the cut up couch, was another little girl.

Her skin was pallid and her cheeks were slightly sunken. Vivid blue eyes seemed to be circled with dark marks, and small hands clutched weakly at an off color blanket that rested on her shoulders. Under it seemed to be a dull light pink sleeveless dress. Bright blonde hair fell awkwardly around her pale cheeks. It splayed out without much care, as if it had been cut in a kitchen with a pair of blunt scissors. In the middle of the choppy mess lay a black ribbon tied at the top of her head.

For a moment, she and the two new tenants just stood staring at each other blankly.

Then she slid easily over the couch.

"Miss! What in the he…what in the _world_ are you doing?" Akechi pulled away from the windowsill to kneel in front of the girl, quickly catching his irritated curse in his throat. His time in the Velvet Room had dulled his social senses a bit; the barriers that were so effective against other people were completely useless against the residents in there so he had temporarily discarded them. It seemed that the teenager was going to have to recoup that loss. "Are you lost, little girl? You can't just walk into other people's houses like that, it's dangerous."

She just fixed him with inspecting eyes. Despite the bags under them, this strange child's eyes were surprisingly inspecting. But just looking at the little girl it became obvious to Akechi that she was nothing more than that. Her hands were clutching at her blanket and her form was trembling slightly in the brisk afternoon wind that blew through the window. Lavenza quickly closed it but made no move to come any closer to Akechi and the child. She seemed content to watch.

Apparently, Akechi thought irritably, it was his problem to deal with this.

 _I don't even speak French…she probably doesn't understand a word I'm saying._

"Are you the weird new tenants that grandmamma was talking about?"

Akechi started a bit, staring down at the girl incredulously. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but whatever she was saying…he could understand it. Somehow he could tell she wasn't speaking HIS language yet it all seemed to click perfectly in his head as soon as her lips moved. He cast a glance back at Lavenza, now sitting on the counter with one leg linked over the pointedly did not look back at him. _It was her. It has to be. Something that the Velvet Room people could do…how strange. She could've at least done this the LAST time we were in Paris…_

"Aren't you going to answer her question?"

"Ah…" He turned back to the intruding child. "Do…do you live here? In these apartments, I mean."

"Yes." The girl swung her shoulders back and forth. It made her dress swish around her ankles as her lips pursed in thought. "My grandmamma owns these apartments. I live here with her. She told me that some very weird new tenants were moving in. I mean, she didn't really say that to me. She said it to Mister Bernard. But I overheard her saying it when I was getting out of bed to go get one of her macaroons. She thinks I don't know where she keeps her macaroons but I do. So when I was getting a macaroon I heard her talking about it to Mister Bernard. So please don't tell grandmamma that I've been eating her macaroons."

"I…uh…" Akechi was somewhat at a loss for what to say. He knew how to deal with people from a distance but children had never been his strong suit. Especially ones like this—the kind that wouldn't shut up and wouldn't make sense. All he could do was hold his hands out in confused defeat. She shook her head fiercely with her choppy hair flying all about her head. One firm bare foot stepped close into the brunette's personal space and he fell backwards in an undignified pile.

"You GOTTA promise me. Don't tell grandmamma that I've been eating her macaroons. She said I couldn't have no more of them." The girl insisted. Akechi groaned, rubbing his face where it had hit the floor.

"Tell you what. You tell me who you are and why you're here…" Akechi exchanged a desperate glance asking Lavenza to step in but she still would not move. "…and I won't tell your grandmother about you stealing her macaroons. Deal?"

The girl's hand swung up from her side confidently. Her free hand, however, reached up to cover a cough that hacked out of her throat. It seemed to make her whole body tremble. Carefully, thanking God for the presence of his gloves, Akechi reached out to give her hand a limp shake. She seemed satisfied with that, nodding with a barely concealed smile.

"M'name is Nadine DuBois. I'm a tenant in here, sorta. My grandmamma is taking care of me right now. She's the manager of these apartments. And those ones too." The girl introduced herself and pointed out the window to the building behind them. "And she said you were kinda weird."

"So you thought it would be fun to come look into it?" Lavenza finally spoke up. Her voice was a lilting relief in the awkward position that Akechi had found himself flung into. Nadine looked to her curiously but kept herself rooted in front of the brunette teenager. "There is a saying, you know, by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. _Curiosity is the lust of the mind_. It's in reference to the mind wanting to know all the answers. Is that why you came here?"

"Um….I guess?" The slight girl looked down to the side, clutching her blanket closer to her shoulders. Akechi couldn't help but notice that she hadn't stopped trembling since she had appeared. He wasn't sure if it was fear or something else. If it was fear, she was quite good at overcoming it—most of the fearful didn't just walk into stranger's houses. Though it didn't help that Lavenza was tossing complex philosophy in the poor child's direction either.

"Nadine? Nadine! Oh, NADINE!" Akechi looked up; in the doorway stood an elderly woman. Her hair was tied up in a bun and a green shawl lay across her high collared dress. Awkwardly she shuffled over the cut up couch to kneel aside Akechi and the young child. "Oh Nadine, what did I tell you about bothering the neighbors? You can't just walk into other people's homes just because I'm the lease owner here. I'm very sorry, young man. She's not very good with listening."

"Or with personal boundaries, it seems." Akechi murmured. Thankfully the elderly woman didn't seem to catch it. Nadine, however, fixed him with an annoyed frown. "Don't worry about it, ma'am. She wasn't any bother. It was just a bit of a surprise, that was all."

"Oh, you're the new tenants, aren't you? I'm terribly sorry about this. Nadine shouldn't even be out of her room." The woman shook her head exasperatedly and took the little girl's hand in her own to lead her over the couch. For a moment, though, she paused. Wrinkled hands delicately held up glasses, hung across her breast with a thin gold painted chain, to inspect Akechi. "My, you do so look familiar though. Have I seen you somewhere before? I could've sworn I've seen your face on the television or something."

"No, no, no. Of course not." Akechi said hastily, turning away from them so she couldn't take his face in further. "I've gotten that a lot, though. I guess I just have one of those kinds of faces."

"Mmh…I suppose so." Her voice didn't sound like she was buying it. But she was also, thankfully, preoccupied with leading Nadine out. The girl didn't seem interested in leaving, though, wrenching her hand away from her grandmother to approach the ex-detective. Akechi looked down at her inquisitively. The girl was too odd to trust. Years of trusting no one led him the knee jerk reaction that even a child could be dangerous. Despite the pleasant smile plastered on his face he could feel his body tensing as if faced with a snake ready to strike.

Instead, she pulled her blanket off her shoulders and threw it around his back.

"Here. In case you get cold."

His mind halted for a moment.

Thankfully Lavenza picked up his steam.

"Thank you. It was nice to meet you, Ms. Dubois. My name is Lavenza. This is my….older brother." Nadine scrunched her nose when the Attendant said that. Akechi had to force himself not to roll his eyes. The two of them didn't look alike at all. Of course people would find that weird. "Alexandre Mukogawa. He's half Japanese, you know."

"Ooh? I've never met anyone from Japan."

"Yes, but he's half French too. We were both born in…" Lavenza paused, thinking to herself. "Chamonix."

 _Just write my whole fake life out on the fly, why don't you._ Akechi thought irritably. But the small girl seemed enamored with the false identities they so desperately needed to maintain. Based by how quickly and effortlessly Lavenza was shooting out information on 'Alexandre Mukogawa' and his little sister, she had planned this far in advance. In a way he wished she had run some of it by him but it was all solid enough so he couldn't complain.

Nadine's grandmother was fixing them with suspicious eyes, though.

"I think that's enough talking about us, _little sister_." Akechi interrupted evenly. "I imagine that these two probably have places to be."

"Yes. You need to take your afternoon medication, Nadine." Her grandmother admonished the little girl. Nadine simply puffed up her cheeks obstinately. Things like these were why Akechi knew parenting would not be in his future even if he DID get his life back on track. He simply couldn't stand that kind of obstinate, childish behavior. In the back of his mind he couldn't help but think to himself that only a year prior he had been just as obstinate and childish. At least the eight year old wasn't yelling.

Instead she turned back to him with clear eyes.

"May I come back and visit again sometime?"

Akechi was at a bit of a loss for words. He couldn't really say ' _god what kind of weird ass kid are you?_ ', at least not right in front of the kid's grandmother. He wasn't even really used to people wanting to be in his home without some pretext of celebrity on television. His old apartment had always felt painfully empty but Akechi had pointedly avoided the desire of inviting anyone inside anyhow. There were too many dark secrets that just that one tiny place could tell people. But that darkness wasn't in this room, dirty and low rent as it was. So instead he looked to the side, scratching his nose awkwardly and searching his mind for an answer.

He couldn't really come up with anything better than a muted "Well, I mean…if it suits you, certainly, you may…"

A smile burst onto the child's face and she gave a small wave as her grandmother escorted her out, lecturing her on personal space and proper manners. Akechi rested against the wall, one fist above his head, as he poured through what had just happened. He had just allowed someone, a complete stranger, into his life. Sure, she probably wouldn't actually come back, but he had still _allowed_ it. He hadn't schemed to make her go away or manipulated the situation so that she wouldn't be able to come near him. He had just…allowed it.

He didn't like that soft smile on Lavenza's face.

He certainly didn't like the echoing sound in his head.

" _I am THOU, thou art I."_

 _"Thou hast acquired a NEW vow."_

 _"It shall BECOME the wings of rebellion that BREAKTH the chains of captivity."_

 _"With the birth of the MOON Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to FREEDOM and new power…"_

Akechi groaned as Lavenza's slight smile widened.

"Wipe that smug smile off your face. We have work to do."


	10. Chapter 10

A/N

I'm so sorry this hasn't been updating like, at all. And I'm sorry that it won't be updating any faster from here on out. I don't like making excuses but the truth is that I've actually been swamped in paperwork. I'm going to Japan for study abroad in like, two days, and right afterwards I'm going to a proper university. This isn't an excuse, though, since I've written other stuff. All I can really say is that I've not been focused in writing at all lately because I've had so much to do. I'm really sorry this is taking so long and your patience as a reader is something I'm very grateful for.

That said, let's get this show back on the road.

" _I'm a shapeshifter at Poe's masquerade, hiding both face and mind. All free for you to draw—I'm a shapeshifter, what else should I be? Please don't take off my mask, revealing darkness."_

Akechi blew on his hands in vain, rubbing them together. On the outside banister of the apartments sat a paper cup of cheap coffee. It had already burnt his tongue with its acidic, bitter taste. He could only blame himself for recognizing the disgusting flavor. If he had not accumulated himself to the expertly blended coffees of LeBlanc then the boy supposed he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. A year ago he wouldn't have taken any notice of the flavor at all and just downed the cup out of practicality.

Now it sat at his side in the earliest hours of sunrise, gathering snow and growing ice cold.

A small flurry had kicked up in the night and Lavenza had greeted him in the morning with a set of winter clothing. He hadn't bothered to ask her where she got the scarf and the thick jacket. At this point Akechi had already grown wearily accustomed to that the blonde girl would never truly answer a question directly unless he happened to be in dire straights. And a small patch of January snow certainly wasn't anything that he could call the most dangerous to ever happen to him.

He sighed; his breath wisped around him playfully then dissipated. Though he was becoming used to the behavior of the Velvet Room denizens, it was still ceaselessly frustrating to deal with their vagaries. Particularly now that they expected results out of him. Yet they themselves didn't even seem to comprehend that which they opposed…

How stupid.

"You can't think such things, you know."

Akechi eyed up the light haired girl as she swiftly placed her hot chocolate, now half empty, aside his now frozen coffee. Not to his surprise, she hadn't bothered to change her clothing in the least. He didn't care to look at her long, though, directing his gaze out over the poverty stricken skyline. If he squinted he could almost see past it to the nicer districts. And if he kept doing such pointless nonsense, Akechi reasoned, perhaps the little girl aside him would stop fixing him with those vivid yellow eyes that seemed to tear into his soul.

Finally he looked back at her from the corner of his eyes. "What do you even believe that I'm thinking, anyways?"

"You're thinking 'this is stupid, this is confusing, why are we wasting our time on something we don't understand', right?" Lavenza mocked the ex-detective, her voice dropping a few octaves to mimic the brunette's. Akechi's just rolled his eyes in response. "You aren't being particularly on your guard today. Is something on your mind?"

"…Concern, I guess." Akechi hunched over onto the banister, burying his elbows in the layer of snow that had gathered up from the light fall.

"Worried about this mission?"

"Goodness me. How'd you guess."

"If it makes you feel any better, which knowing you it probably won't…" Lavenza reached up to the banister, standing on her tiptoes, to pull herself up to his eye level with the now snickering boy. "…I'm worried about it too. I mean, how do you track what is supposedly always moving, and has no motive to direct it? It's very unlike what I've ever seen before."

Akechi had to resist rolling his eyes again. "But?"

"But if teenagers can summon the dark one to fight a living God, then I think we can probably handle whatever this is."

The boy had to hold back genuine laughter at that one. A small snort managed to escape anyways. The sheer honesty in Lavenza was near staggering. Her comparison was so ridiculous yet so apt. In comparison to what had happened in the last year, all the mundane squabbles and concerns of man seemed very inconsequential and meaningless. Even, he realized bitterly, his own pitiful obsessions. What was the suffering of a damaged child in the face of a manipulative God meaning to destroy all of man? Nothing. Nothing but a weak point to exploit so that the bigger picture could be obscured and hopefully snuffed out.

It was just Masayoshi Shido on a cosmic level.

And he'd fallen for it.

All of the sudden, Akechi felt more angry than anything else.

He felt as if he was drowning in his own mediocrity, his own stupidity, his own bad choices….and then there was a hand. There was a small, simple hand of a child covering his own as they looked over the snow. Lavenza's hand did not grip tightly at his own nor did her fingers attempt to lace with his own. They simply were, sitting atop his own, radiating with the sheer warmth of a living creature aside him.

Like a bonfire in a field of snow, the irritation melted away into a defeated slump.

 _You can't change the past, Akechi._

He was glad, at least, it could go unsaid.

"So where exactly are we supposed to start with this?" He finally said, ignoring the child's gloved hand over his uncomfortably bare one. "I don't have the Nav anymore. I don't even have my phone anymore. So I don't really have any way to detect the presence of whatever this…this 'travelling Palace' is. Much less try to enter it."

"I can feel it." Lavenza replied simply. "As for entering it…well, I'm working on fixing something up that could help us with that."

"Didn't the Nav just come to me because of what was going on with Mementos and the Yaldabaoth incident?" Akechi wondered. Lavenza paused, eyes fixed on a man behind them who walked by with a confused expression on his face. Carefully, with his free hand, Akechi's fingers splayed across the back of her head to pull her away from her target. "Calm down. It's just one of the people who live here. Don't give them the death glare. It makes us look even more suspicious."

"You speak from experience?"

"Just a bit. Could you answer my question?"

Lavenza sighed. "Yes, of course. The Nav did come to you become of times of great peril, though likely not because it intended to assist in preventing said peril. Yaldabaoth created and sent versions of the program to both your phone and the phone of Kurusu Akira to set his plans in motion. Neither Igor nor I have any idea how the application fundamentally ran because by the time we were back together, it was not necessary to fight those who opposed us. At that point it had deleted itself. Mementos ceasing existence, I believe, may have been the reason for the demise of the Nav. Honestly, even if it was still on a phone, I'm not sure if it could even do anything now."

"So like an out of date program without a system update."

"Basically, yes."

"For fuck's sake." Akechi ran a hand through his loose hair. This was becoming increasingly frustrating. He wasn't like Lavenza's last disciple—he had the patience to wade through garbage, but lacked the temperament to not be constantly frustrated by it. Waiting around like this made him feel a sick feeling in his stomach like he had forgotten to do something and it just might get him killed. It made him think too much. "…So what do we do now?"

"We wait." Lavenza replied simply. "And we prepare. We are already in the vicinity of this energy. I can feel it; it floats over Paris ready to strike at any time. If you can have a little patience then I should have a method of moving between there and here soon enough."

"What if we don't have TIME to wait?"

"We will."

"And how do YOU know?" The bile of rage was beginning to creep up Akechi's throat; this girl that had seemed so comforting was beginning to seem more and more infuriating.

She was very hard to dislike but more often than not, he found himself thinking that she was not particularly easy to like either. Perhaps it was the way she seemed to always talk like she knew better than him, or perhaps it was the fact that she could just end up being another noose around his neck. Perhaps it was the way she turned like every movement she made was intentional, or how her striking golden eyes bore into him with an intensity that seemed to reach everything that he had worked so hard to hide. That he could no longer hide from her.

All he could do is watch, on guard like a half crazed animal, as she gazed at him.

"I know because we would not be here otherwise. This is fate, whether you like it or not. It was fate that misfortune met you with Yaldabaoth—it will be fate that you find your own fortune." She said carefully. "I can feel it. It is here. But I cannot pinpoint it yet. So all we can do is wait and see what it has to offer us."

Silence overtook the pair as they stared over snowy Paris, over the gray and lifeless apartments. Everything in Akechi urged him to just go inside; he was cold and his coffee was cold and his fingers were starting to freeze. Yet it somehow felt like losing to step away from the stone banister before the child aside him. He wouldn't be surprised if Lavenza could tell this, especially with the slight smile that tinged her lips despite the situation they had been placed in.

She was so calm yet oddly positive in the face of disaster. This small girl who sometimes couldn't even pass for an actual human being somehow had the ability to act more maturely about their situation than him, a teenager on the brink of adulthood. Such things as naivety didn't faze her. She seemed content with her current lot in life, even if she couldn't understand it, and could somehow just trust that they were being led the right direction.

It irritated him. Mostly because he couldn't help the niggling feeling that a mere child had taken a more mature approach to her life than he had or ever would.

Before he could say anything, though, a loud shout rose from down the hall.

Both he and Lavenza exchanged glances as the door furthest down from their was thrown open, a young boy pushed bodily outside into the cold. His hair was untrimmed and wild, tamed only by a ragged cap, with his face caked with dirt and his clothes torn and aged. He fell backwards to catch himself against the banister, the large book in his hands slipping to fall over the rail; with a gasp, the child, clambered atop the railing to watch as it tumbled down to bury in a snowdrift.

"I said NO, Hugo! Go away! I'll make you sick, I swear I will!" A shrill screech pierced the air; with one hand resting under his cheek, watching the scene play out before him, Akechi realized he recognized the voice. Tilting forward he could see small white knuckles clutching against the doorframe. The girl with the pallid composure and blue bow was standing in the doorway with a fierce grimace on her face. The same girl with dark circles under her eyes, and the same girl who had without a second though charged into their apartment yesterday.

"Nadine—" The boy at the railing tried, but he didn't get very far.

"Just GO AWAY, Hugo!" She yelled, thrusting her arm to point down the arm. "Go get your stupid book and don't come back! I don't need anyone but grandma, anyways! You…you're just a PAIN!"

Silence reigned over the hallway; with a start, both children realized they were being watched by the pair aside the railing. Quietly the dirty young child gathered himself up to back down the hall, turning on his heel to run away from them. Nadine watched with narrowed eyes until he disappeared into the creaking elevator shaft, the numbers above flashing down to the ground floor. Then she looked over to the onlookers; angry eyes seemed to morph into tired and sad ones.

Lavenza was quiet and Akechi wasn't sure what to say. He rather WISHED the Attendant would say something, to break this uncomfortable silence of staring back at forth with an upset child. He wasn't good with children. He never had been. He could show them what they wanted to see but they were frustrating beyond belief. Their intents could never be gauged and their responses could never be predicted. After all, the little girl he looked at now was certainly now the cheerful girl that had forced her way into Akechi's living room the day prior. The girl who had looked sickly but upbeat and curious yesterday today only looked….ill.

Nadine's mouth hung open for a moment, as if trying to grasp at words, then she promptly slammed the door shut.

Leaving the Attendant and Akechi to stare wide-eyed and wordlessly.

"…What in the hell was THAT about?" Akechi asked incredulously. Lavenza didn't answer; rather, he brows furrowed and her hands grasped tightly together in contemplation. Her golden eyes focused down on the square below at the speck of a child dusting snow off of his novel and turning to retreat. She knew that the ex-detective could not see it so there was not much point in trying to direct his attention to it, but the boy wore an expression of helplessness and desperation when he looked down at the cover.

It was the face of someone who was dealing with a difficult person.

No, she thought as her eyes focused back on the now locked door that Nadine had hidden herself behind. Not just a difficult person. A person who had become difficult enough that their heart had begun to warp. Possibly into something far darker than anyone around them could even begin to realize—a descent into a consciousness that had begun to see reality and themselves through a corrupted lens.

Lavenza closed her eyes. It couldn't be checked yet.

But it could be explored.

"I think we should speak with that boy, as soon as possible."


End file.
